(Self-released, cassette, digital, vinyl) Joe MacAskill's time in the Vermont music scene was relatively short. Along with his then-wife, Jaye, he moved to Burlington in 2020 from San Diego and opened a boutique called Catland Vintage in Winooski. As the musical comedy duo Pony Death Ride, the couple released the excellent unthemed that same year, which included songs such as "Ben Stiller, Movie Killer" and "Phil Collins in Retrospect." The couple closed Catland Vintage and divorced in 2023, leading MacCaskill to move back to San Diego the following year. But the musical connections he made in Vermont were strong. Before returning to California, MacCaskill wrote a noir-inspired punk album called You Can't Unmurder Someone and recorded it with members of Burlington punk rockers Rough Francis as the Strangulators. MacCaskill's supercharged backing band includes Rough Francis' Tyler Bolles and Julian Hackney on bass and guitar, respectively, along with Iggy Pop and Rough Francis drummer Urian Hackney, who engineered the album at his Burlington studio, the Box. "You could say I punched above my weight with this record!" MacAskill told San Diego-based culture website the SceneSD. "I brought in my little songs, and [Rough Francis] turned it into the punk album it is." Released in November, You Can't Unmurder Someone isn't just MacAskill's tribute to his time in the Green Mountains but also to his deep, abiding love of pulpy crime novels from the 1950s and '60s. Each track on the new album is dedicated to a different book in his collection, which makes for some killer song titles: "Mother Finds A Body," "The Black Leather Barbarians" and "Martinis and Murder" are just a few grisly noir tales turned into fist-pumping punk anthems. The pairing of pulp and punk is as smooth as gin and vermouth. Duplicitous dames, hidden bodies, seedy cities at night ... MacAskill covers it all. Lesser artists might have leaned into satire or looked for a joke in the juxtaposition — not an unreasonable expectation, given MacAskill's comedic background. Despite the album's cheeky titles, the Strangulators aren't fucking around: These songs are deadly serious. Urian Hackney's drumming, as powerful, emotive and sophisticated as ever, drives You Can't Unmurder Someone. The pace never lets up, from the slick riffage of "Death Perception" to the bombastic title track that closes the album. MacAskill's and Julian Hackney's guitars are as distorted as the morals of the album's protagonists, cutting through…