Although often stuffed with indie waifs, electro knob- twiddling nonsense and Scando-rock bollocks, Norway’s annual by:Larm festival has time and time again proved to be the place for breaking some of the most inventive and passionate heavy music around: Norway’s Shining and Kvelertak to name but two.
And now add to that illustrious list fellow Norwegians Honningbarna. Verden Er Enkle is the first LP by the Kristiansand-based quintet available outside of their homeland. Don’t ask us what the name means, but with the sort of rancid yet infinitely danceable punk attack brought out over the record’s 13 tracks, it doesn’t fucking matter.
From the likes of opener Dødtid, which with its unrelenting drive and caustic execution comes on like Refused and Blood Brothers being launched through a car windscreen, to the rapid-fire brevity of Fuck Kunst (Dans Dans), which falls somewhere in the territory of The Hives pretending to be Ramones, but with hand claps, Verden Er Enkle pulls off that near-impossible feat of managing to control the type of unhinged punk anarchy that’ll make you dance ’til you puke.
