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Sound Familiar?

Walkers Distinctively Salt & Vinegar (with real British vinegar)?

I picked a bag out of my salty box tonight thinking I knew what I was getting into..Nope. I opened the [25g] bag and was greeted with the welcoming smell of salt and vinegar chips. So far so good. I tossed one in my mouth..what the what. A mouth full of potato, a pinch of salt and almost no trace of vinegar [distinctive my scrote!]. I thought, "Maybe it was just a dud chip". I was wrong. As I made my way through this little taster bag, I was met with disappointing crunch after disappointing crunch. The odd chip had a very light vinegar seasoning [just enough to make you think, "maybe this world isn't just a dark pit of despair", then you'd taste the next almost flavourless chip]. This was pretty much the equivalent of a lightly salted bag of Lay's that was sitting on the shelf beside a bag of salt and vinegar chips..just long enough for some of it's influence to rub off, but nothing of significance. If this is what all Walkers Salt & Vinegar chips are like then I feel sorry for Europeans and don't understand how this flavour hasn't been pulled from the shelves.

The Rites - Your Last Rites E.P.?

I saw this used 7" at Music Trader (Winnipeg) this past..summer?. The front was black and white cartoons of bleeding hands playing instruments. The back was also black and white with the left side listing the title of the release and songs while the right side was a picture of a man with a microphone doing quite an impressive jump kick. The label: Deadalive. I assumed that this would be a hardcore album, wasn't sure if it'd be punk or metal based..either way it looked like something I could be into. When I got home and threw it on the record player I was met with this sludgy deep voiced..wait, it's a 45. The Rites play frantic thrashy hardcore punk (as the album art indicated [it's nice when the packaging isn't misleading {Walkers!}]). The vocal delivery is straight yelling (on the higher side of the deep spectrum, strained at times) and for the most part the lyrics are indecipherable (inside the cover the lyrics are sloppily hand-printed and hard as shit to read). Based on song titles and a quick [frustrating] skim of the lyric sheet; whoever wrote these (personal) lyrics is pretty angry..and found similarly angry humans to back him. Fast and aggressive, I dig it. I dabble, but I'm not an 80's hardcore aficionado. This album's from 2002 but it sounds like it could have come straight out of the east coast in the 80's. This E.P. kind of sounds like a rougher, more angry Minor Threat..on speed.

Stay hydrated,
Marc

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