The guttural snarls of a vicious, rabid vocalist clawing at your throat. The crisp, punchy cadence only a live drum set could conjure. The penetrating, sharp-tongued lyricism spearheading songs covering topics most are too afraid to speak up on.  With California’s Race Car, you get absolutely, positively, UNDOUBTEDLY, fucking none of that – not unless you consider songs about go-karts and in-school suspension to be “touchy”. No, you instead get four steaming, shitspeckled hot ones from a wannabe cowboy – Raymond A.K.A. “Shrink Ray” – armed with nothing more than a drum machine, twang-loaded guitars, various mechanical noise-makers, and more importantly, an intense hankering for SPEED. No, not the amphetamine, I’m talkin’ SPEED: Race Car’s customary unit of measurement for HOW HARD HIS MINI-GAS-GUZZLERS TEAR UP SUBURBAN STREETS. Believe me, the quirky, garage-y nature of these pastoral earworms won’t detract from how much these songs’ll rip up the highway to your earholes, “hombre” – these records might as well be soaked in gasoline. Unlike Raymond’s later project, S.B.F., you’re not gonna want to expose this four-track EP to an open flame. Grippin’, rippin’, and straight-up scorchin’.

Our take: Tape-on-vinyl from these California favorites. Here’s what we had to say about the tape version, and I have to say that now that this is on wax I think I like it even more: “Under the radar ripper alert right here! If you're into the recent spate of catchy, novelty-infused punk on labels like Lumpy and Total Punk and coming out of places like Northwest Indiana, then Race Car should definitely be on your radar. With their drum machine-fueled rhythms and catchy songwriting they remind me a bit of Lumpy's Muff Divers, though not nearly as silly and over the top. The pumping drum machine also recalls bands like Urochromes, but after a little while you don't really even think about the fact that these songs are made with a drum machine because they're so damn well-crafted and catchy. Seriously, these are absolutely brilliant songs, and if one of the hip labels mentioned above doesn't put out a record by them sooner rather than later I would be quite surprised. Highly recommended!”