Standing Over By The Record Machine: Amyl and The Sniffers’ *Cartoon Darkness*

Our fave Aussie sharpies put the boot in, unencumbered by added production sheen. Plus: Why must Microsoft keep monkeywrenching us?!

Amyl and The Sniffers’, whose ever-glamourous singer Amy Taylor’s face is gonna freeze like that. (📸 Pic: John Angus Stewart 2024 @phcfilms, courtesy B2B Records/Virgin Music Group)

I am convinced that women are punk’s future. All the best punk bands of the last ten years—The Interrupters, The Linda Lindas, for two—are all-women or are fronted by a strong female. Just last week, I declared the Lambrini Girls’ album the punk record the modern world needs. And I fell in love with Australia’s Amyl and The Sniffers six years ago, as blowtorch vocalist Amy Taylor leaned on my shoulder and grinned at me as I texted my editor “They’re on!” while launching their SXSW showcase—her expression practically screaming, “Stop fucking texting and PAY ATTENTION!”

Amyl and The Sniffers have always sounded like a gang you wouldn’t want to mess with, and that energy comes from a uniquely Australian mix of influences. They channel AC/DC’s sweaty pub-rock power, the Ramones’ no-frills speed-riffs, and Rose Tattoo’s blunt swagger. But beneath it all, they’re carrying a cultural torch from an even deeper Australian tradition: Sharpies.

For the uninitiated, Sharpies were a full-blown youth subculture in Australia during the late ‘60s and ‘70s, heavily influenced by English skinheads but with a uniquely Aussie twist. They had short cropped hair, bold-patterned cardigans, and high-waisted flares—but unlike UK skins, Sharpies weren’t just about style. They were rough, territorial, and prone to brawls at gigs. And the soundtrack to all this? Bands like Coloured Balls, whose mix of blistering hard rock, glam stomp, and boogie swagger fueled an era where working-class youth built their own underground rock culture.

That lineage runs straight into AATS. They don’t just pull from punk and pub rock, but tap into that ballsy Australian take on glam and street music, where every song feels like a brawl waiting to happen. And at the center of it all is Amy Taylor, the cheekiest, wildest frontwoman punk has had in years.

If Iggy Pop had a Ziggy Stardust mullet, a permanent smirk, and an energy that’s equal parts alluring and confrontational, you’d get Amy. She’s punk’s latterday ultimate provocateur—mocking, sneering, flirting, and ready to throw a punch all at once. There’s a sharpness to her sexuality that isn’t about seduction—it’s about control. She dictates the terms, and you’re either along for the ride or getting left in the dust, kinda like ‘90s feminist punk icon Amanda Rootes, of Britpunk she-ros Fluffy: I can recall her snarling at audiences of drooling troglodytes demanding to see her breasts, “SHADDAP! I’LL KICK YER COCK OFF!” Amy could be Amanda’s granddaughter. She might be the original Lambrini Girl.

*Cartoon Darkness*: Refinement Without Restraint

It’s obvious the minute AATS’ third LP Cartoon Darkness (B2B Records/Virgin Music Group) takes over the hi-fi that this is the lushest production they’ve enjoyed to date. Well, when you work with Nick Launay at Los Angeles’ Studio 606 and the legendary Sunset Sound Recorders, you might get slightly more widescreen results than in someone’s four-track garage facility. But then opening track “Jerkin’” crunches in on guitarist Declan Mehrtens’ sawtooth wave crunch and bassist Gus Romer and drummer Bryce Wilson’s brute slam. And Amy opens her mouth and lays into a pathetic music critic who obviously “want(s) to hit it”: “Need to wipe your mouth after you speak/'Cause it's an asshole, bum hole, dumb cunt…Keep jerkin' on your squirter/You will never get with me/I don't wanna be stuck inside that negativity.”

No, Amyl and The Sniffers are not about to mellow into Fleetwood Mac-dom….

“Cartoon Darkness is about the climate crisis, war, AI, tiptoeing on the eggshells of politics, and people feeling like they're helping by having a voice online when we're all just feeding the data beast of Big Tech, our modern-day god,” Amy informed Pitchfork last August. (Wait—you’re feeling the technological clampdown too, Amy? Stick around for the rant following this review!) “It's about the fact that our generation is spoon-fed information. We look like adults, but we're children forever cocooned in a shell. We're all passively gulping up distractions that don't even cause pleasure, sensation or joy, they just cause numbness. Cartoon Darkness is driving headfirst into the unknown, into this looming sketch of the future that feels terrible but doesn't even exist yet. A childlike darkness. I don't want to meet the devil half-way and mourn what we have right now. The future is cartoon, the prescription is dark, but it's novelty. It's just a joke. It's fun.”

So, the album does not lack Themes-with-a-capital-T, nor have AATS lost an iota of their anger. But they’ve hardly become The Clash or Crass. The point of this band is stomping, bloodthirsty rock ‘n’ roll basic enough to be bashed out on two rocks by a caveman. They’re the latest in a long line that commences with The Troggs and progress through such august specimens as everyone mentioned throughout and includes Motörhead, Slade, Cockney Rejects and Anti-Nowhere League—bovver rock or bootboy rock, basically. Ain’t nothin’ and no one watering that down.

If Cartoon Darkness has a message, it’s not to overthink things—just to feel them. Amyl and The Sniffers still don’t give a damn about complexity, intellectual posturing, or anything standing between them and the gut-level impact of rock ‘n’ roll. If this album proves anything, it’s that their stomp-and-snarl attack isn’t getting slicker—it’s getting sharper.

Sure, Amy might be staring into the abyss of AI dystopia, internet-driven numb-out, and the impending ecological wipeout—but she’s not about to turn into Phil Ochs. The best way to fight back? Boot to the face, guitar at full blast.

Amyl and The Sniffers are still a gang—and Cartoon Darkness is the sound of them kicking down the door.

Microsoft: The Acme™Corporation of Tech Companies

Why do I feel like Wile E. Coyote, every time Windows updates?

"Beep beep!" – Windows Update, right before driving your productivity off a cliff.

We all know the routine. One minute, you're working smoothly. The next, your machine grinds to a halt, held hostage by an unstoppable Microsoft update that promises "improvements." You sigh, hit restart, and pray it doesn’t break anything.

But of course, it always does.

See, Microsoft isn’t just a tech giant—it’s actually Acme™ Corporation in disguise. Every so-called “upgrade” is just another faulty gadget, rigged to explode at the worst possible moment.

• Forced update in the middle of your work? Acme™ Dynamite Kit—guaranteed to derail your momentum!

• UI redesign that fixes nothing but hides everything? Acme™ Portable Hole—say goodbye to finding basic settings!

• A “critical patch” that slows your machine down by 500%? Acme™ Rocket-Powered Roller Skates—watch your system crash in real-time!

No refunds, no way to opt out, and no accountability. Just one more update… and BOOM—right off the cliff.

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The Evolution of Microsoft Acme™: From Bad to Worse

Microsoft Acme™ has been sabotaging productivity since the dawn of personal computing, and yet, we keep falling for it. Like Wile E. Coyote ordering yet another Acme™ gadget, we install every update hoping this time it’ll work properly.

But let’s take a moment to remember the biggest disasters in Microsoft’s Acme™ legacy—each one a product failure so absurd, it might as well have been delivered in a wooden crate stamped with "Guaranteed to Fail!"

Windows ME (2000): The Acme™ TNT Bundle

Microsoft called it "The Millennium Edition," but it should’ve been called "The Malfunctioning Edition." This glorious disaster had:
✔ More crashes than a demolition derby.
✔ System restore that worked about as well as an Acme™ parachute.
✔ Random reboots for no reason—because why wouldn’t you want your work to disappear?

Installing Windows ME was like lighting a fuse and hoping for the best. Spoiler: It exploded.

Windows Vista (2007): The Acme™ Anvil

This one came crashing down faster than an anvil on Wile E. Coyote’s head. The problems were legendary:
✔ Endless security pop-ups: "Are you sure you want to open this file?"
✔ Bloated, sluggish performance: "Try running this on 2GB RAM! Just kidding, we’ll eat that for breakfast."
✔ Hardware incompatibility so bad, it made printers extinct overnight.

Microsoft called it revolutionary. Users called it "How do I downgrade back to XP?"

Windows 8 (2012): The Acme™ Fake Tunnel

The most Looney Tunes update of them all—looked great from a distance, but the second you tried to use it, you smacked into a wall.
✔ No Start Menu: Microsoft decided you didn’t need a simple way to navigate.
✔ Forced full-screen apps: Because clearly, what we really wanted was an OS that functioned like a Fisher-Price tablet.
✔ Charm Bar: Because nothing says “intuitive” like a hidden menu you summon with a mystical mouse gesture.

Windows 8 was so universally despised that Microsoft had to fast-track Windows 10, just to undo the damage.

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Today’s Microsoft Acme™: Now With Even More Chaos!

Of course, Microsoft hasn’t learned a damn thing. The tradition continues with:
✔ Forced updates at the worst possible time: "Looks like you're on deadline! How about a restart?"
✔ Random UI changes that nobody asked for: "We moved all your settings again! Have fun!"
✔ AI integration that doesn’t work: "Would you like Microsoft Copilot to rewrite this sentence into complete gibberish?"

At this point, Microsoft should just fully embrace the Acme™ branding. Instead of Windows 11, just call it Windows Acme Edition™—now with 100% more ways to ruin your day!

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Final Thoughts: Why Do We Keep Falling for This?

Because like Wile E. Coyote, we never learn. We see a shiny new update and think, "Maybe this one will work!" And every single time, it drops us off a cliff.

Microsoft Acme™ isn’t here to help you—it’s here to sell you one more broken update, make your life harder, and leave you looking up from a crater wondering why you fell for it again.

Stay vigilant, my friends. And whatever you do… never trust a Windows update.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to undo the damage from yesterday’s update… [Cue whistle/KABOOM! as I walk off the cliff.]

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