‘It’s easy to think like the crowd. It’s easy to live like the crowd. It’s easy to be a part of the queue. It’s easy to stand in line. It’s easy to repeat what others say to you. It must be, cos that’s all you do.’ (Live Like The Crowd)

Alien Nosejob is the nom de guerre of one Jake Robertson, a staple of the Australian DIY punk community.  A solo endeavour for recording purposes, this is the project’s eighth album in as many years.  However, what always surprises is the sheer gamut of influences and styles that these albums have explored since the project’s earliest hardcore iterations – KBD punk, garage rock, indie pop, and synth fuelled new wave have all benefited from Robertson’s inventively anarchic touch.

Anti-Fade has been the long-term Australian home of Alien Nosejob, along with collaborative international sojourns for each individual release with the likes of Drunken Sailor, Feel It, and Total Punk.  So, the fact that How A Mosquito Operates sees a return to Iron Lung gives a clear hint that this latest instalment is a bracing return to the twitching, whiplash hardcore origins of the project.

This proves a well-placed expectation as we career back to those original 1980s’ USHC influences, which are then filtered through Robertson’s ever distinctive lens.  It imbues the seventeen tracks with both a fierce immediacy and a still untamed virtuosity, as the rasping vocals caustically dissect the pressures and confinements of everyday life.  It sees the snarling hardcore eruptions of Born Loyal and Neo, together with the bruising stomp of Westside Story, nestle seamlessly alongside rather more off kilter turns, such as the full-on rock strut of The Executioner and the woozy organ of Stupid Smiles.