Though now three years old, the album Fancy Peaks has not fallen into the realm of obscurity for London's small but dedicated hard-core punk scene. These polished recordings engineered by Misfortune guitarist and current S.M frontman Sam McDougall were re-released last year as a throwback to the days of yore when London's unified punk scene was one of Canada's finest and most well-defined.

Though still intensely active, many of the show-goers have moved on to form other projects outside of the punk realm or relocated to larger cities across the country. Peaks' ferocious and short-length recordings stand as a gem and as a painting of what the Forest City underground has to offer listeners and from the stories I've been told, the band also held nothing back when it came time to perform.

Musically, Peaks is a straight up hard-core punk band. No breakdowns, no macho tough guy shit and no mercy to those who take issue with short songs and dissonant chord structures. With songs like “Appletini” lasting a mere seven seconds, some listeners may be left scratching their heads, wondering why the song couldn't continue at least for another minute or why the band decided to name a song after an alcoholic drink.

There's usually no method to the madness in this case and I'm glad there isn't because the last thing talented musicians need is to overthink what they're doing. It's habitual for some to layer their music and create something that is dynamic but I think it's important to listen to music that doesn't need to be analyzed too heavily.

There's nothing wrong with that — of course, music is a dynamic thing but far too often musicians will become obsessed with it. They forget that the roots of music come from simplistic song structures, and most of all, soul. You wouldn't necessarily listen to this and think that this is “soulful,” but I would argue that it is in its own way. Much as pain and happiness can be expressed, anger is just another emotion that exists in its own right.

To correctly portray anger or frustration is done the same way as portraying other emotions, naturally. You can't fake an emotion to people and it's clear that Peaks did not do that. Peaks did what it did and exited when the band felt it was necessary to do so.

In these recordings, the drums pound out upbeat punk rhythms along the crunchy bass lines, which help carry the tracks' low end. The vocals sit relatively well in the mix, not coming too far forward like a lot of punk recordings do and are complimented by great sounding guitars. They're not the cleanest thing in the world, but they're certainly cleaner than a lot of punk music is, and sometimes I kind of like that. In order to portray the aforementioned emotions, I think a good recording is necessary. It doesn't need to be high quality and crisp, but it needs to fit what the music is and these do just that. The mix is heavy on the low end and hits you like a sack of potatoes, if you happen to know what that even feels like for some reason.

For fans of old school hard-core punk, Peaks is certainly up your alley. It doesn't waste time in trying to convey unnecessarily complex musical ideas or bore you with flat recordings and subpar songs. It's short, aggressive and locks you in for a brief moment of time to remind you that this kind of music still exists, and it's still going strong. Unfortunately Peaks is no longer around, breaking up some years ago and fizzling into a brief but good memory for some. You can catch the songs on Peaks' bandcamp account at peaks777.bandcamp.com and download for free/pay-what-you-can if you choose.

Hopefully we can see more bands like this popping up in the future. Bands that are explosive, short lived and full of emotion, whatever that emotion is, and as some in London will say, may they soon rest in Peaks.