Las Vegas Weekly

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The Vermin

Joe’s Shanghai

Track 18 on the new Vermin album runs for nearly half an hour, but not because the Vegas vets have suddenly embraced prog. It’s 29 minutes long because it contains the disc’s first 17 cuts, strung together in their entirety. Take that, 99-cents-a-song download outlets!

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The Vermin: Joe's Shanghai

Band Guide

The Vermin

Beyond the Weekly

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The band’s first full-length of new material in eight years finds the tattooed trio—frontman Dirk Vermin, bassist Rob Ruckus and drummer Turbo Proctor—sounding as punk as ever nearly a quarter-century after Vermin and Ruckus began playing together in teen outfit Vermin From Venus.

The group spices up its old-school Orange County sound with a jazz-backed, spoken diss of the nightclub scene (“Where’s Nikki?”: “Nice shirt, asshole … I’m so glad you came down from LA to show us how it’s done”) and a tad of twang (a cover of Mac Davis’ “Oh Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble”). But mostly, whether it’s a run through Petula Clark-via-M.I.A.’s “Las Vegas” or a no-frills, revved-up numbers like “Rough Trade” or “Chewin’ on Glass,” the new Vermin output sounds quite comfortable alongside its ancestors.