Opiliones - Constant Doubt 7"

I was mistaken when I thought Opiliones is the Spanish word for opinions. Instead the Bavarian quartet has named itself after the order of arachnids commonly known as daddy longlegs, one of the cuter kinds of spiders.After their debut album from 2014, which is unfortunately unknown to me, the band is now back with a seven track seven-inch vinyl record on which they see themselves located somewhere between punk rock and post punk. Quite often the band likes to be compared to Hot Snakes, which were founded by former members of Drive Like Jehu, which should also be a good indication of what to expect.My punk roots lie rather in the Nineties than in the new millennium, so I hear different elements. Sidekick Forever for instance comes with chord sequences that sound very mid-Eighties Sonic Youth to me, or maybe even a little EA80 without the Joy Division type vocals. Replaceable is an exquisite punk rock track with a furious chorus. And on The Walking Joke, the guys even display a sense of humour by adding some kind of rockabilly vibe à la Mad Sin. The overall stylistic approach is like timeless punk rock teaming up with Nineties flavoured noise rock, and I am glad to say that there is hardly any post punk, a genre I am personally not too fond of.The four tracks on the A-side never make it over two minutes each, while the three tracks on the flipside are all running between two and two and a half minutes. These are appropriate lengths for crust punk songs, but Opiliones too often end the song before it hardly began. Don’t get me wrong, the material is still absolutely great, but these songs could have been developed over three or possibly four minutes without losing anything of their charm. Or at least that’s the impression that I have. There is always the repeat-button... maybe not for the vinyl record proper (which comes in a simple yet effective cover artwork), but for the MP3 files that you can download courtesy of a download code. I am looking forward to more music of these Bavarian punk rockers, and hope that the next record will be longer.