Reviews

If Rancid was the 90s' street punk, American version of The Clash (go with me here), then Bankrupt is the 90s' street punk, Hungarian version of Joe Strummer's earliest outfit: the 50s surf-rock inspired 101ers.

Paying homage to The Ramones' third album Rocket to Russia, Bankrupt's Rocket to Riot City reflects Budapest's recent eruptions of riots, especially in 2006, when the country discovered their prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, had lied about the state of the economy to win re-election. The worst of these took place in September 2006, but anti-government riots and protests are still taking place this September.

Although the band's fourth release is only five tracks long, it manages to exhale a breath of fresh air within those too-short ten minutes, taking a bit of what you've heard before and making it sound a bit like nothing you've heard before. Rocket to Riot City starts out with a line from True Romance, which seems a fitting connection, and hurries into "Straight Outta Graceland" which basically sounds like a pop-punk song with a strong rockabilly overtone, which continues across the album.

On "Memories From the Underground" the band plays just slow and melodic enough to fit alongside Germany's arguably biggest punk act, Die Ärzte, which is both an irrelevant comparison for American audiences and a sloppy one for Europeans. Sorry, it's the most fitting band I could come up with. After all, Bankrupt has found an audience in Germany, as have many of our own punk acts.

It's easy to be dismissive of continental European punk rock - a lot of it unfortunately sounds like its American contemporaries, only the gritty details have been filed down. But Bankrupt didn't take their influences so literally and instead channeled a few different sources to emerge with their own, unique sound.