I love this band. I just thought I'd tell you this. They just get better and better. The only thing that really sucked about this show was the fact that it was too short. Even the crappy venue wasn't all bad. The kids were just happy to have a place to go see shows that didn't mind that they weren't eighteen, so they were in a basically respectful mood about the whole event. Even the door staff were nice.

If you've never heard of "Babyland," a self-described Junk Punk outfit that specialize in low-tech/high-voltage output, hop on the Web and get on it. Far from a new thing, this outing is in support of their fourth full-length record, "Outlive Your Enemies." Someone out there has to believe me. Perfect Industrial punk really does exist. It's "Babyland," and you're going to fall in love with them. . .that is, if you can hear them.

Once a part of the failed Flipside Records, the band is now on their own and doing it all themselves. They don't have a national distributor. All their sales are through their site, through mail order at their site, or possibly at three or four stores in the L.A. area that they ship them to. So, in order to avail yourself of their work, you gotta go find it. I guarantee they are worth the hunt.

Even rarer an occurrence is getting to a show, unless you're lucky and live within four hours of Los Angeles. I hear Las Vegas fans were treated on the sixth of February with a visit, and the band were rewarded with a packed house. The Anaheim gig was no exception.

Chain Reaction isn't the greatest venue; it's all ages, so you can't get a beer. Not that that's a bad thing; I wouldn't want anything to distract you from the event you're about to witness. These days, it's easy for musicians who work in punk or industrial to get caught up in every studio gadget, noisebox, effects processor, sampler, and digital editing rig in the world, but they don't sound half as good as "Babyland." Working with everyday objects like an oil drum, an appropriated heater coil fused to a base, a buzzsaw, a dazzling array of old keyboards and vintage fuzzboxes, all of it sequenced on a 1988 Mac Plus, this band mikes the cast of characters, lets it fly, and it just soars.

Vocalist Dan Gatto growls his way into your conscious like a six-ton truck and stays there. Percussionist Smith (known only by last name) is, quite simply, the most amazing thing you will ever see in action. He doesn't just play his junkyard castoffs-turned instruments, he inhabits them with a force you can't imagine.

One of the high points of the set was "Sight Equals No Sound" from the new album. "Are you frightened by the sight of change?/ You do the same things again and again./ Repetition has swallowed your drive./ How can you take something you hate and justify/ Living it everyday over and over?/ Selling out your life as some kind of martyr./ Have you given all your hope a fair chance?/ A life by default, a shift to the silent."

I did, however, miss the pin-drop clarity of "Sophmore," an honest admission about an adult looking within, "The further I wander away from fifteen the more that I know I still need an answer," underscoring the fact that not all of us have put away those years yet because we don't fully understand what they were about. We were, however, treated to "Hillhurst," inspired by the street of the same name in Los Angeles, about being lost. ". . .but maybe I think too much about street signs and parking lots. I never read the words. I just look for the shape. I got no attention span. Thrown off my shiny things. . ." and "I won't even read the words, 'cause I've seen the ugly shapes. How close is Hollywood to some place I want to die for?"

The greatest thing about "Babyland" is the intensity of the live show. They throw every inch of muscle into a performance that amounts to anything but stage "theatrics." Instead, it's all about involvement. There isn't a band out there that is doing what they do, and if there is, I haven't heard of them.

My main hope for this band is that they find some national distribution and hopefully something a step higher than sporadic college radio airplay. They deserve more than the DIY scene is offering them. I mean that in the nicest possible way. Check them out, live or on record, and you'll see what I mean. And spread the word. I'm willing to bet that this incredible show is going to have its lid blown off very soon.