Steve Adamyk Band, Dial Tone.

The Steve Adamyk Band is a punk band from Ottowa, and that Canadian part is significant. They sound as if they’ve learned punk from their fathers’ record collections. They play classic Ramones/Buzzcocks-speed punk. There are a few harmonies and chant-alongs and abrupt chord changes, but all within the realm of straight-ahead no-nonsense mainstream punk rock. They are very good at assimilating this now decades-old style. The production style on this album even sounds old-school, like the way traditional studios would clean up raw punk sounds for public consumption. Something honest and rough occasionally sneaks through this good-natured cleanly delivered Canadian punk, though however happily I can listen to this album over and over, it refuses to captivate me with any original thoughts. This may be the band you’d want on tour to get the crowd moving for a more distinctive headlining act. They are standard-bearers, even if the standards they bear are original tunes that sound remarkably derivative. Really trying to mix my admiration for The Steve Adamyk Band’s remarkable grasp of early ‘80s punk sounds with the fact that I find the songs themselves unmemorable. Great background music for headbanging while typing, however.