a review even e e cummings would approve of

this one comes to us from there’s nothing funnier than pride in an utterly confident stride:

"one can safely assume that with song titles like “fuck you, i’m rich,” “donkey show” and “fraternity days” that the yuppie pricks have a certain social class and their much maligned lifestyle directly in their crosshairs. clocking in at a whopping minute and a few seconds, “collars up” is as punk as it comes and in the classic sense, and not in the recent crop of mtv styled pussies sense. their new record balls is out now"

- Gregor

Aversion Therapy

From the latest Aversion.com:

Balls
The Yuppie Pricks
Chicken Ranch Records

"Punk rock -- or a casual approximation of it -- turned up in a lot of weird places lately: Blaring in the background of luxury car commercials, pumping from SUVs driven by snotty rich kids, auto-loading on the MySpace page of every sniveling, future Republican scenester in America. Yeah, it's really disconcerting, isn't it?

The Yuppie Pricks are here to take punk rock back for the punks. Launching an over-the-top offensive at everything that was, long ago, anathema to the punk spirit -- rich guys, Republicans, fashionistas, frat boys -- Balls aims to burn every bridge punk's built with the mainstream over the past two decades. If it doesn't immediately sound like a wonderful idea, you probably have no business buying punk records in the first place. Try moving on to Coldplay.

As divisive as possible, The Yuppie Pricks make that abrasive, snotty and defiant punk album that's been on the endangered species list for eight or nine years. Guitars sound like they're being crushed by falling cinder blocks as much as they're being played, the rhythm section is an earthquake in a scrap yard and singer Trevor Middleton learned his trade by singing along to Dead Kennedys albums. It's the sort of album you can play for your own enjoyment, or play at your stuffy neighbors, coworkers or sister for your own amusement.

The Yuppie Pricks hate all the right things, and use their amalgam of '80s California punk, hardcore and metal as a vehicle for that hate. "Collars Up" blasts the popped-collar status symbol that's swept the nation again, "Fraternity Days" takes an easy pot-shot at the Greek sector of campus, "Fuck You, I'm Rich" spares no words satirizing upper-class values. "G.O.P." retools Buzzcocks' classic "ESP," to piss off the red states. In the spirit of bipartisanship, "Donkey Show" swoops in to disgust the Democrats. The pro-suicide "Loser" is there just to piss off anyone The Yuppie Pricks might have overlooked.

It's all done with a snide smile -- there's as much Guttermouth and Vandals in Balls as there are Dead Kennedys and Crass -- so the Pricks are flicking authority's nose rather than aiming a gun at it in the name of the proletariat. Smile all you want, though: Balls is the sort of album punk's needed for a while -- let's pray it finds its way into the ears of the pop-punk scene."

- Matt Schild

Parade of Pricks

From the latest Parade of Flesh:

"YUPPIE PRICKS – balls. (chicken ranch) – Balls. is an aggressive and humorous punk album that clocks-in right at 22 minutes. There is so many songs involving Donkeys and Juggs that one can listen to in a sitting and they knew just when to cut it off. I can see people at Bar of Soap enjoying this band live. "

Run, Don't Walk

From the latest Run-off Groove

"Open up the Sunday newspaper and you might believe that Avril Lavigne is actually a punk princess. Even she knows she isn't, so fuck her and the doughnut box she brought in. If you want some decent punk rock, seek out Balls (Chicken Ranch), the new album by a band who are proud to be named Yuppie Pricks.

The group take a bit of the Dead Kennedy's prowess with slivers of The Dehumanizers to offer a ruthless collection of I-don't-really-give-a-fuck songs. On the surface, it seems that while a lot of bands are trying to take the best of what the 80's may have offered, Yuppie Pricks poke fun at the excess of the decade and go back and discover why punk bands were doing the kind of music they were doing in the first place.

Some punk purists may not like their melodic sense, because "Fraternity Days" could easily become an anthem in the next Seth Rogen movie, but even Rogen would probably want to salute songs like "Fuck You, I'm Rich", "Donkey SHow", and "PRICK4LIFE". The band hold up and deliver those riffs with strength, and they do it while not taking themselves too seriously. Makes one wish Avril Lavigne was this good. Then again on second thought... "

(Balls is available directly from Chicken Ranch Records.)

Get Some

From this week's Austin Chronicle:

Yuppie Pricks - Balls.
(Chicken Ranch)

"Over their six years together, Austin's Yuppie Pricks' role-playing punk schtick has depreciated somewhat, their eponymous stereotype now supplanted by the hipster douche bag as pop-cultural whipping boy de rigueur. Fortunately, the Pricks compensate for their decreasing timeliness by being a better band. Balls. is tighter and beefier than 2004's Brokers Banquet, and in a daring test of the old saw that risk is necessary to good satire, vocalist Trevor Middleton continues to proudly flip the bird at irreverence as he leaves it in the dust of plain obscenity. The Pricks hedge (har!) their bets with gloriously ripping performances of songs by the Undertones, the Chumps, and Big Boys – charitably overlooking the anti-yuppie message of "Frat Cars" – and do the music world a final service by festooning their disc with a hairy man's flag-clad nether regions. Now nobody else needs to do that."

Damn straight. Congratulations to us.