The Cowboy 
A short, but sweet rip out of Minneapolis’ bastion of punk permanence, Fashionable Idiots, this debut from The Cowboy doesn’t waste anytime getting right to the whipped core of things. The Cleveland band contains members of Pleasure Leftists and Homostupids, and while it has very few crossover tendencies of the former, there’s a certain brutal similarity to the latter. Though, The Cowboy (not to be confused with The Cowboys damnit) is not simply a retread of the terrain of Steve Peffer’s experimental past. Rather, The Cowboy is no frills punk with a hardcore heart. The band bashes shit out, wipes the sweat and gets on their way without so much as a “thanks.”
The sheer economy of this album makes it impressive. They do more in under a minute-forty than most bands do with whole albums. The Cowboy’s wrapped taut like ink black snake coils around the riffs in this sucker and pounding drums like they owe the band money. This is the kind of album that starts bands. The stuff that kickstarts the inherent need to work out frustrations through sonic assault in the nascent brain. Hell, it kickstarts the feeling in an aging brain. The members come from bands that found their own cult of purists and acolytes, but here they prove that crushed bone and anger sweat can be alchemized into brutal brilliance.