Michael “Fat Mike” Burkett never slows down. This year, he’ll be wrapping up his long-running, continent-shaking, massively influential punk rock band NOFX with one final, raucous tour — and if that’s not enough activity for him, he’s formed a new group with a new set of accomplices. Codefendants are, in typical Fat Mike style, unprecedented, audacious, and enormously entertaining. In spirit, they’re punk (how could a Fat Mike project be anything else?), but in execution, it draws from roughneck rap, zonked reggae, Latin pop and flamenco, streetcorner folk, spy and cop movie soundtrack music, and even a pinch of hook-driven mainstream rock.
Fat Mike, Get Dead lead vocalist Sam King, and alternative hip-hop artist Ceschi Ramos have taken only the dirtiest, most immediate, most catchy elements of all the styles they’re raiding and keeping things as freewheeling and “genre-fluid” as possible. They’re calling the resulting sound “crime wave,” and songs like “Def Cons” could indeed score a car chase, a break-in, a heist, or any other activity that bewilders and defies the authorities.
“Def Cons” is the latest in a run of explosive singles that have already established Codefendants as one of the most audacious and creative projects in Fat Mike’s extensive discography. “Suicide By Pigs” and “Abscessed,” both released around the turn of the year, are an amalgam of stinging rhymes, ferocious guitar, slamming beats, barked vocals, truthful lyrics, and some of the most irresistible hooks you’ll ever encounter on a punk song. They’ve already recorded with Get Dead, Onry Ozzborn, N8NOFACE, and hip-hop legend The DOC — and they’ve got more exciting collaborations on the horizon. Dying Scene called the sound “dark, bleak, and awesome,” and the newest single provides more of everything that made the prior releases great.
Its video extends an ongoing story that began with the “Abscessed” clip and looks likely to continue well into 2023. It’s a crisply shot, wonderfully and horrifically explicit crime drama, complete with illicit pills, private investigators, prison and courtroom scenes, low-angle shots of cars, and lots of nefarious exploits from one of the most corrupt cops imaginable. In prior clips, we’ve been given some of her backstory, and we’ve been given hints about what might be motivating her to do the brutal stuff she does. But you don’t have to have seen the other Codefendants videos to feel the thrill of this one. All you’ve got to do is buckle up and get ready for a wild ride.
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