Turbo Fruits “Turbo Fruits” Review
It is not considerably hard to categorize Turbo Fruits as something similar to last year’s sensation Be Your Own PET, especially so considering their sounds are both vibrantly based in a lighter, southern-whipped style of punk, and both bands consist of talented young musicians (including drummer John Eatherly and guitarist Jonas Stein who occupy positions in both acts). Prefix Magazine‘s Eric Fitzgerald documents the band as “a mixture of surf rock and Bad Brains,” but unlike BYOP (who name check Bad Brains in their debut album) Turbo Fruits play a harnessed attempt at recklessness.
To suggest the group’s scatteredness can be attributed to Bad Brains would be an inept comparison, Stein sounding nothing like HR and playing far more rhythmically than Dr. Know; true, the bands are in the same family, but they have far different personalities. Bassist Max Peebles and Eatherly act more along the lines of John Entwistle/Keith Moon, especially so during tracks such as “Know Too Much,” than the punks they are made to sound. It’s alarmingly simple to qualify the act, as it was was with BYOP, with the formula of ____ rock + punk = band name, but the band’s debut album offers so much more than that. Turbo Fruits energy is almost the equivalent to that of early ’90s Seattle acts, one that introduced punk to a new generation and brought excitement to the mainstream. In this case it just so happens that BYOP, who could be considered the early ’80s equivalent to the band, just happened to release its debut album within roughly a year of Turbo Fruits.
The greatest attribute that be can said about the band is Stein’s phenomenal debut as a vocalist, sounding much too gritty to give substance to Fitzgerald’s “surf rock” comments. If Mudhoney’s Mark Arm were dead I would conclude that, based on not merely sound alone, Jonas Stein was Arm reincarnate. And as album the races by that connection becomes far more apparent, Turbo Fruits sounding more similar to Five Dollar Bob’s Mock Cooter Stew than I Against I. And why not, it’s about time grunge got a face lift.
