As you can see from the stupendously cheaply produced cover art looming over this review – a “V For Vendetta” Fawkes mask superimposed over a photo of the Tiananmen Square protests – this band may fancy themselves of an anarchic slant. However, unlike genre forebears like Crass or Dead Kennedys, there is little revolutionary material to be found within.
This is fairly bog-standard three-chord punk, delivered with the sort of malicious intent that would happily spit in your Mohican and drown you in flat lager for good measure. And, aside from ‘Deckchairs At Dawn’, a virtual retread of The Stranglers ‘Peaches’, the songs go absolutely nowhere. Opener ‘Quick To Temper’, for example, repeats an identical verse-bridge-chorus pattern over 4 interminable minutes. This band have been slammed on this site previously for cheap and childish attempts at humour; the only joke I can derive from this showing is the singer’s Estuary affection despite hailing from provincial Sussex.
Even a fast & furious cover of Kim Wylde’s ‘Kids In America’ can do little to save this record’s grace. The band’s bio lists their heroes as The Exploited, Motörhead and Black Flag; in reality this would sit comfortably in a record collection alongside latter-day oi! bands like Cockney Rejects or Cock Sparrer, but not in mine. Perhaps I am too young and unjaded at 24 to “get it”, as final track ‘Getting On’ reflects, but this raucous noise has well and truly had its day. Time to move on.
OLLIE CONNORS