Divided,The - "Pack Of Lies" 7”

"Following a great debut album at the tail end of 2019, Raybo and the gang are back spitting venom on this new three song rollercoaster. There must be something in the water around Orange County that the punk rockers drink by the bucket-load. I mean with a pedigree of bands like Social Distortion, TSOL, DI, Agent Orange and The Adolescents, right through to many of the bands on the Hostage records roster, this is punk rock heaven! Fortunately, The Divided have drunk deep from that same well and indeed for a couple of decades already as four of the bands did their time treading the boards with Bonecrusher.

The three tunes on here all bounce along at a fair pace, with guitar licks announcing the melodies before Raybo drops his gravelly vocals into the mix. You can feel the blues and passion with every syllable that he spits out, before being joined by the inevitable gang vocals on the chorus. All three songs on offer are proper ragers but Nothing Left is the winner for me, all the ingredients mixed perfectly. I am possibly preaching to the converted here, as any self-respecting fan of Bonecrusher is going to snap this up, but for all you OC punk fanatics, here’s another one you can’t let slip through your grubby fingers." Tom Chapman