Rusty

  • Rusty
  • Fluke (Tag) 1995 
  • Rusty EP (Can. Handsome Boy) 1995 

Formed in ’94 by ex-members of the Doughboys and One Free Fall, Toronto’s Rusty debuted with an eponymous EP, the five songs of which gave the punky quartet a leg up on its album, which sees the first bid with a like number of new tracks. A noisy, pointless screaming nothing with atrocious sound on Mitch Perkins’ drums and the vocals mixed down to the point of total incomprehensibility, Rusty (in the epiglottal person of vocalist Ken MacNeil) sings about “Punk,” “California” and “kd lang” on Fluke. “Wake Me” makes amusing use of a Creedence-like choogle amid the post-Replacements bluster, but that’s as good as it gets. Rubbish.

[Ira Robbins]