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I met Alex Napiwocki somewhere around too many years ago. Through mutual friends, under-aged drinking, punk rock and coffee Alex was one of the other guys in our crew that was a punk. Our bands played some shows when I was into playing much darker heavier stuff, I still loved punk, but I had moved on to more bleak fields of music.
After a decade of living in Ventura County I came home and started looking for bands to play with again. I’ve had enough of metal and I was reconnecting with my punk rock roots when Alex sent me a copy of an E.P. ‘Too Fucked to Fail’ that he’d recorded with his band Animals and Children.
I listened to it once.
Then again.
Again.
Here were three expertly crafted songs that were loud, fast, melodic while still being punk. The guitar work is blazing, the bass solid and the drumming by Jasmine Tomita so precise it cuts like a straight razor. These are songs that you can’t ignore.
Lyrically Alex has crafted a very nice line between being poetic and just knowing when to say something without waxing intellectual. His words are clever without being too glib, honest yet still holding on to a certain amount of irrelevancy that keeps the songs fun.
It’s not an easy thing, especially in the wide sub-genre infested world of punk rock, to be able to walk the line between all those sub-genres and the ‘Too Fucked to Fail’ E.P. does exactly that.
The world just might need Punk Rock more than it ever has given the divisive and terrifying political climate of the country. It’s time for that beat to come back to spur change and while Animals and Children aren’t centrally a political band they definitely approach what it’s like to be a little older, to deal with the change that’s happening. Anxiety and a back beat just to get through another goddamned day. That’s why we need Punk now, and it’s why we need bands like Animals and Children.
When I finished listening to the songs over and over I said one thing
“I’ve got to be in this fucking band,”
I am now.
I have never heard a band that gave me that reaction before and that alone tells me how special these songs are and how special they can be to other people.
Animals and Children are: Alex-Vocals and Guitars. Jasmine-Drums and vocals. Bass and vocals-Timothy.
You can find the Animals and Children E.P. Too Fucked To Fail on Spotify, Amazon, BandCamp and most streaming services. Also make sure to check out the artist who designed the cover to the E.P. Gabby Vee
They’ve also been included in a great comp you can check out on Band Camp https://viciousmistressrecords.bandcamp.com/album/punk-in-the-streets-vol-5
