REVIEW: Commie Hilfiger - My Car Keeps Stalin

Being a novelty band is a tough gig to pull off. You can be, I don't know, like GWAR, and have a fun live show but if your records ultimately suck then why should anyone bother with your BAND? This is where Commie Hilfiger (originally Commie Hilfiger and NAACCCP) succeeds because their songs are catchy as all fuck and it's something you actually wanna jam after the show. Sure, it's great to see five dudes in Cuban/Russian fatigues wave glow sticks around half-way through the set but it's a testament to their songwriting that everything they wedge in between the comedy and schtick gets stuck in your head. Check out the dance of the revolution:

My Car Keeps Stalin (see what they did there?) is four songs of fun mid-90's snarky, tongue-in-cheek pop-punk with a serious rock 'n' roll tilt that proudly strattles the line between clever and stupid hoisting a fifth of vodka while raising a middle finger high up in the air. Featuring veterans of several revered Houston bands (LDV, Hell City Kings, The Contingency, Smokeaters) these cats don't mess around and get right to it on the disc. "Manifesto" sets the EP off right with a pseudo-serious castigation of the American spendthrift culture with a final proclamation that our comrades will "Take to the golden arches/ [And] burn them down with our torches/ the rising revolution marches on!" The title track is a glorious fuck you to the calamity that was the YUGO (members Jay Guevera and Yuri Nation proudly own one). "Cuban Missile Crisis" brings the blasphemy (against the bands comedic ethos) as it paints Castro as a closeted cross-dresser but the real standout on the EP is "It's Time." This is Commie Hilfiger at it's best; a great punk rock sing-a-long built around the common theme of hating your job only to twist the lyrics into a call for the Communist revolution that is so base any 18 year old kid taking his first Philosophy class would quickly accept it as his black-masked mantra for anarchy. That ain't a slag, brothers and sisters. Commie Hilfiger is a solid band that knows their novelty and nurtures it well. So raise your fists and support these fine proletariat Proust's until they inevitably become American pig-dog capitalists (merchandising will out) and we can reject them as the faux-revolutionaries they readily presented themselves to be.