Cutting Class are now no longer with us and have decided to package up pretty much all their material into one handy release. I’m not sure if this is freely available as a download or as a CD, but either way it’s a great listen. Tracks 1-8 are all new – 1-5 were a last EP, 6-8 were meant to be on a split 7″ with Break the Habit. So there’s plenty of new material even if you have been into the band for a while.
For the unaware, Cutting Class are/were Leeds-based and play a fast pop-punk in the style of Kid Dynamite or Lifetime. There’s lots of energy and lots of melodies – the likes of ‘Embrace This Disarray’ are some of the best songs of this ilk in the UK in the last few years. ‘Failure’, ‘1, 2, 3, 4’ and ‘Motley Crass’ are all standouts on a record that doesn’t have too many duff tracks. My only ‘complaint’, and it’s a minor one at that, is if you play the 17 tracks on repeat for a few hours, as I’ve done, they do start to blend into one another a bit. Cutting Class are definitely the kind of band you put on for 15 minutes, get pumped, and then revisit it later on.
That said, Cutting Class will be sadly missed. This discography is a collection of brilliant songs from a band that probably didn’t reach the heights, and stages, they perhaps deserved. This record is a fitting tribute.