APCO aren’t messing around. The five piece from country Victoria have just dropped their self-titled debut album - a collection of gritty, angry songs recorded at the Fawkner home studio of friend and Lost Talk confidente Max Ducker - that is abruptly to the point, in its loudness, honesty and power.

Think Viagra Boys meets Civic meets ORB, with a humour and acute self-awareness to it all. A band that really is named after a service station, as closing title track reveals. It’s exactly this kind of true-to-the-roots attitude that allows APCO to shine. Perhaps that’s the most punk trait of all to embody.

The album is flawlessly performed, holding a driving, powerful energy from start to finish. There are hints of a big doom influence here (country-born folk can surely resonate), particularly on ‘Smoke’ - before the track veers off to cheekily honour Deep Purple, inverting that famous riff into something far more hellish. It’s clever and funny, while still remaining noisily irate.

‘Paper Plates’ is the lyrically most challenging and engaging song on the record. It’s a social commentary on a visionary ideal male. The lyricism here is tongue-in-cheek, all the while tearing the social conception of masculinity to shreds. ‘BC’ on the other hand, goes back and forth between falsetto vocals and the most hoarsely sung screams you are going to hear this year, while ‘Trading Aces’ is the most riff-heavy song on the record. It’s dogged, raw, blood surging punk all the way through. 

The album’s most overarching and impressive feat is its compelling self-awareness - APCO know exactly who they are and the music that they want to make. While their brand of angsty punk is sure to satisfy many, they aren’t trying to please anyone. If anything, the record is all the more rousing knowing that the five-piece are really just enjoying hanging out and making a bunch of noise, as the band say this of the record: “It's great to be in a band and back in close proximity of great old friends, in a total different capacity. It recalls great memories of past times and also reflections and feelings of where we came from and grew up.”

It’s refreshing to hear a band with this amount of talent zero in on precisely the elements of living in regional Australia that can be so alienating, infuriating and dread-ridden. Especially in such a stark time, APCO is a harshly beautiful album, and exploding with fun and visceral energy, serves as a perfect opportunity to blow off a bunch of steam.