Halfwit quietly releases first songs

To call Halfwit a supergroup would be a discredit.

There’s no novelty associated with the Lincoln garage punk quartet, which released four tracks to its Bandcamp page last week. People aren’t packing the front room of The Bourbon to see what a few Lincoln names sound like when they play together. In fact, it’s easy to be sure that Halfwit would be packing rooms even if none of them had ever been in a band before.

Still, it’s hard to dismiss an impressive portfolio.

Frontman Dan Jenkins sang and played guitar in Ideal Cleaners from 2003 to 2012. Bassist Saber Blazek made a name for himself playing with The Machete Archive for four years. Guitarist Kevin Waltemath and drummer Lance Fielder have played together in Life of a Scarecrow and Mother Pile.

But the self-titled release has little to do with Halfwit’s members or their previous projects other than that the songs are masterfully crafted.  It’s punk rock energy and classic rock bravado. Halfwit is a master class in channeling reckless frustration without sacrificing musicianship.

Halfwit began playing together early in 2013 and unless you’ve caught them live, your best bet at hearing them has been low-quality videos shot by fans at their shows — until only very recently.

Early last month we got a music video of sorts for “Lion in Disguise,” the lead track off the four-song release. The video marked the first publicly available record of Halfwit.

Last week, it was a URL to the Bandcamp page posted on the band’s Facebook without incident or comment. It’s like Halfwit doesn’t really care if you listen to it or not. But you should.