Album: Punk Explosion
Artist: Renny Wilson
(Independent)
Three-and-a-half stars (out of five)
As Michael Rault treks west on his latest tour, his cousin/collaborator Renny Wilson is heading east – relocating from Edmonton to Montreal (with Garett Johnson of Brazilian Money). As a farewell present, the curly-haired wizard is leaving us with Punk Explosion, a seven-year, eight-song saga. He calls it his Chinese Democracy — he started working on the EP in 2007, then sidetracked himself with other projects, like his soft-disco album, Sugarglider, and Rault’s Living Daylight. Punk Explosion, released last month, sees/hears Wilson returning to his roots – he used to front the garage-rock trio, Subatomics, in his teens – and, naturally, the EP lives up to its title. Each song is a furious burst of guitar klangs, hyper drums, and brattitude, clocking in between 97 and 166 seconds. Wilson often sounds like a five-year-old girl in the middle of a tantrum – which is how Edmonton should feel about losing another musician of his calibre.
