For Billy Bones, things are simple—or at least, they should be. The frontman of beloved Vancouver band the Vicious Cycles just wants to play rock and roll songs about “motorcycles and having a good time.” From the opening salvo of “I’m Alive” on the band’s new LP, Get Wrecked, they hit that point home, hard and true.

Bones and company aren’t concerned with odd tunings, shifting time signatures, or any flowery embellishment. Get Wrecked delivers good-humoured, sneering garage punk in the sacred tradition of old-school favourites like the Gories and the Oblivians. Rarely do dour castigations of fiscal inequity and political strife sound like such a toe-tapping good time.

In true garage punk fashion, song titles read like cheeky B-movie taglines. There’s little allegory lost in tracks like “Naked on the Beach” and “On Fire in the Hot Tub”—you know exactly what you’re getting. Big, bouncing bass lines, squealing solos, acid-scorched organs, and raspy, shouted vocals: all the crucial elements are alive and thriving here.

It’s hard not to love Get Wrecked and the Vicious Cycles’ knack for writing bravado-laced, uncomplicated anthems. The world seethes, the economy slides further down the pipe, the trains don’t run on time, and artists are ruining art. A little shot of purposeful primitivism might be exactly what you need to keep your chin up.