Name wise they are a bit of a mouthful but ‘The Good the Bad and the Zugly‘ are an underrated Punk outfit that the Norwegians have been keeping largely all to themselves, up to now, but with the release of ‘The Worst Four Years’ the word is now out so hopefully this will change.

Sound wise GBZ, as they are also affectionately known, hark back that of Oslo’s nineties Punk scene, with a firm nod to the likes of Turbonegro, Gluecifer and Anal Babe, with a lyrical content that suggests some wonderfully infantile nihilism, delivered as vibrantly aggressive Punk Rock fun, just how I like it!!

‘The Worst Four Years’ is a compilation album and a damn fine one at that, made up from of out of print and previously unreleased material including of their early 7" singles from 2011 onwards as well as the Bransjvelter compilation track ‘I'm Fucked Up’ featuring Kristopher Schau and an excellent unreleased cover of Swedish Noise Rockers Brainbomb’s ‘It’s a Burning Hell’ recorded when GBZ didn’t have an official lead singer. The first single titled ‘Sitter Fast i Hælvete’ translates as “Stuck fast in whole wheat“ so these guys either have some interesting predilections or the title is “very lost in translation” but it might be best to just not know the real meaning, either way it’s a superb opener to the album and was originally released back in 2011 on No Fucking Hippies Records. All tracks precede the band's two albums ‘Anti-World Music’(2013) and ‘Hadeland Hardcore(2015) which were also released on Fysisk Format and these tracks still form a central part of the band's live set and when you wrap your ears around the up tempo, punchy, addictive riffs, the angry, crazy, screaming vocals that are delivered with clarity, balanced with chanting harmonies you’ll see why, it’s pretty anthemic stuff so it’s great that they have finally made it all onto one release.

The whole album is an end to end excellent listen but the stand out tracks for me and it was a difficult choice, are the attention grabbing ‘Sitter Fast I Hælvete’, ‘My Execution’ which has sharp direction and tempo switching, ‘Heavy Metal Kid’ for its superb lead work, addictive riffing and moving lyrical content and the frantic and punchy ‘BrainBomb’.

Track listing;

1. Sitter Fast I Hælvete
2. Oslo Jonestown
3. Social Paranoia
4. South American Standoff
5. My Execution
6. Heavy Metal Kid
7. Money in the Bank
8. Fucking is Awesome
9. BrainBomb
10. Killing time
11. I’m Fucked Up
12. It’s a Burning Hell

‘The Worst Four Years’ is available direct from GBZ’s label Fysisk Format.