It takes approximately 0.83 seconds for my eyeballs to start rolling when spinning this album for the first time. Largely responsible are the opening lines, “I’m burnt out - Like a corpse in a camp fire,” which are yelled over a heavily distorted punk riff. If I was a teenage boy, I might be nodding my head right now, thinking, “yeah, that sounds cool”. But I’m not. I’m a music snob looking for originality and an emotional connection. I already know I’m not going to find these things here - but what the hell, I’ll give it a listen anyway.

This is heavy duty punk-rock. It’s frenzied, aggravated, strong, violently executed, and loud. Strongly rooted in the skate-punk music of the early nineties, Small Arms Dealer are a relatively unknown band making a lot of noise out of Long Island, New York. “A Single Unifying Theory” their debut album, is an energetic and aggressive celebration of punk rock, complete with suicidal and homicidal lyrics, references to mutilation, weaponry, violence, and a whole lot of swearing. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Fortunately, the album doesn’t take itself too seriously, doesn’t require a lot of concentration, and is consequently pretty good fun.

Considering this is pretty much the polar opposite of my usual listening diet, it’s pretty hard to either criticise or praise the album. Not that I’m opposed to loud rock music in any way, but I don’t really have the adolescent hyperactive energy required to listen or sing along to somebody yelling for half an hour these days.

Having said that, the songs are short and sweet, punchy, smartly produced, pretty well written, and nicely played. There are occasions when I feel like I’m listening to the bastard child of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and No Fun at All. Oddly enough, the singer bears more than a passing vocal resemblance to the former, which makes for a strangely familiar listening experience. The fact that they’re a largely derivative band detracts from the experience – but in this business, the best borrow from the best, and half the kids listening to it have probably never heard anything like it. It’s a vicious cycle of re-hash repeats, and it’s only occasionally that we get something truly original that makes music critics the world over wet themselves with glee.

It’s not a ground-breaking album, but then again, rock music doesn’t always have to be rocket science. It’s good to know there are still people out there shouting and swearing about killing people just for the fun of it.