World War IX

Tough-sounding debut by what may be New York City’s best straightahead punk band right now…jetbomb rhythms meet total down-and-out attitude in the NY streetwalking cheater way that makes you want to exhume Stiv Bators’ corpse. This is tough stuff, from the guttural CRUNCH of the guitars to the sentiment expressed by such odes du life as ‘Fucked Up All the Time’ and ‘Hungry For Beer.’ Production-wise it’s ace—I want this guy to produce my album (if I ever get around to making one before de bomb goes off). Snarling hate voiced by a rag-taggedy bunch o’outsiders who don’t give a fuck—what could be more affirming in post apocalyptic Amerika? Bombs away, baby, as the Jonestown said (special credit for covering GG’s immortal NYC Tonite…cool!).
- Joe S. Harrington

When world peace is achieved, the final war may well be waged on boredom. If so, then World War IX has already one the first battle with its album Panic Attack. Though often used as insults, the words drunk, sloppy, loud and obnoxious are taken as compliments when applied to punk rock. WWIX takes the sound back to its inebriated origins with bands like the Sex Pistols. While other so-called punk banks are writing songs, WWIX writes anthems. From the first track on Panic Attack, Thank God It’s Monday, WWIX establishes its anti-disestablishment creed and carries it throughout the entire CD with tracks like Body Dump, Hungry For Beer and Level 10. This fun album will go down smooth and fast like chugging a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
- Andre Pope

WORLD WAR IX - Panic Attack (www.elliseil.com) I had the opportunity to see WWIX at CBGB, sharing a bill with Good Grief and The Nerve! Their CD can’t even come close to the shear manic-ness of this band. But that should not exclude one from wanting to listen to this wild release, which is manic and fun in its own right. From the opening salvo straight through the last cut, it’s no prisoners. They kill with humor, with song titles like “Thank God it’s Monday”, “Fucked Up All the Time”, and “Hungry For Beer”. They also seem to have a GG Allin fixation, and so covers his “New York City Tonight” pretty kick-ass. Live, I was especially impressed with the prowess of bassist Annick Des Roches, but on this CD, they all easily hold their own. Max Strum’s style is reminiscent of bands like the Mumps, Student Teachers, and Come On. Yeah, I think you should go out and get this old school style punk extravaganza, AND see them live. - RBF - Robert Barry Francos

I know 'em all. The hardest working bands. The ones who sit home and practice for hours. Perfect ears. Perfect pitch. Nimble fingers that touch exactly the right notes at exactly the right time. Vocalists who can hold a note, bend it, play with it and then let it out to ring true and exact. They tour 50 weeks a year. City to city. Honing their skills with each performance. Real professionals. They make me sick.

Thank GG that WWIX is none of that. Drunk, sloppy and as much fun and as out of place — as an erection on Yom Kippur. Loud, obnoxious, WWIX could be you or me, but we don't have the balls, or the musical chops. G-d bless 'em, they got the power to make you into a burbling fan.

WWIX is my favorite New York band. Watching them is like being ninth on line in a gangbang. You get excited watching everyone else enjoy themselves so much. When it’s finally your turn, you immediately know what turned on the others. Rollicking fun, WWIX.

A WWIX CD is the next best thing to being there. Like those secret bedroom videotapes,it'll let you relive the joy and pain of a live show. Or, like someone else's secret bedroom videotapes, it'll let you come close to the experience, and then come again.

Not hearing, seeing, tasting, WWIX is like dying without ever having had a blowjob. Is there anything more tragic?
- Mykel Board

I don't know if I've ever seen WWIX on stage. I dunno the places they play, the way they play, they're right in the audience. In your face! The singer Max Strum is a maniac. Thrashing through the crowd, sometimes singing
right up to the bar. And the rest of the band's right there wit 'em. Songs are that way, too, 'bout gettin' fucked up, gettin' lai & tryin' to go to work the next day. Just like their fans.
- Crazy Glenn Wernig

Looking for a no-nonsense, no frills garage punk rock band? Check out the 11-track endeavor from World War IX, whose brand of nervous punk rock has a discernible old school gloss. Tracks like the opener “Thank God It’s Monday” echo a common theme over a jumpy beat, while the groovy bass in “Body Dump” has a Misfits feel. Harkening back to the days when punk rock was dirty and unrepentant, PANIC ATTACK is ripe with attitude, from the invigorating title track to the GG Allin cover “NYC Tonight”. Frenzied without being overpowering, World War IX’s latest collection is worth it for the people that still incessantly spin their Buzzcocks and Black Flag albums. - Mike SOS

WWIX is fueled by intelligence and insubordination.

WWIX’s freshman effort is populated with dating and endless analysis, drinking and hang-overs, creepy corporate war stories and other dead-end stop-gap survival tales. In all cases, the city is the backdrop, the blood, and the excrement of this thoughtful and assertive operation.

The result is a distinctly urban testimonial—a montage of fashion, self-destruction, puking, implied belligerence, and neat urbanity. In this light, WWIX is a little like a drunken orangutan with a NYC teaching license—delivering a careful message, but all too happy to tear off your arms and beat you with them.

The writing and playing on Panic Attack (2004) are good. The band lines up eleven original tunes (I think they are all original) and delivers a concentrated dose of tongue-in-cheek wit, straight forward power tunes, and even the cleverly concealed—though heavily predisposed—pop tune (I Like You).

With its bouncy and melodic bass lines, chainsaw guitars, “ahead-on-the-beat drums”, and dead-pan vocal drops, Panic Attack (2004) WWIX is totally digable.
- Allen Constant

WWIX (that’s a lotta wars) is a Brooklyn based punk rock band featuring a guitarist and (kinda JR Williams-ish) comic artist by name of Justin Melkmann, and his (presumably) funky bunch of friends. What is cool, it turns out, about having a cartoonist in the band is that he can draw pictures of what each song is about. And as far as I can tell, all of ‘em are about drinking, except for the ones about murder, and the GG Allin cover (“NYC Tonight”), which is, of course, about both. Their sound has a decidedly retro ’77 flavor to it; they sound a LOT like the Buzzcocks and a little like EATER and the maybe the Jam. The songs on the aptly named “Panic Attack” are jumpy and fast, and they sound like a way too-crowded, way too-druggy night at CBGB’s. As you may or may not know, bands from places like New Zealand or Scotland that play nervous pogo-rock like this are often proclaimed to be geniuses – or at least “hot” – by neo-hipster newsstand rags, so perhaps a similar kindness will be bestowed upon our Noo Yawk pals here. Either way, if you are currently wearing a leather jacket and have a handful of pills in one of the pockets, then chances are you’ll dig this. - Sleazegrinder

In this day and age of MTV "punk bands" like Good Charlotte, Saves the Day and the musical abortion that Green Day has become, all we can say is thank god for WWIX! This album is what a punk album should be: short, fast, loud & unruly! You'll want to shake your ass and break the furniture all at once when you hear these guys too! Arguably even better live, but do yourself a favor and pick this one up now, both to hold you over 'till their next show and so that you too can breathe a sigh of relief that someone out there remembers what REAL punk rock is all about! Fuck Sum 41, long live WWIX! Fuck yea!

- P5! and Tanner!