This, for all intents and purposes, is a sketch book of ideas. We all know the ‘Duncan from Snuff‘ sound – that warm yet gritty, 3 chord punk sound. He has always had his finger in many a proverbial pie, the best proof you can get for the fact that a musician lives and breathes their music, so this compilation is no real surprise. It’s incredibly disjointed, deliberately I think, and up and down in quality of production and song writing, but above all it’s a very interesting listen.
I was expecting some acoustic tracks and something a bit different from usual, but I was left wanting, because this is ALL straight up punk rock. Some things are a bit more experimental (e.g. a recording with his Billy No Mates Japan outfit), but nothing will stun you for being different from a Guns N Wankers record, or a Snuff record. The 22 songs on offer are made up of about half a dozen different projects, with 1 or 2 odd songs added that seem to have just been piss abouts (a dire track with Fat Mike, a track with NoMeansNo). The best songs are collaborations with a band fronted by Frankie Stubbs (man, his voice is dead – but the more dead it gets, the better it seems to sound!), a couple of which are a real treat. The fact that tracks from this outfit start and end the album is no coincidence. There are a couple of amusing Hard Skin songs and that kind of stuff too.
This is a real ‘mood’ record. If you’re in the right mood, then bad recordings and easy going punk from some of the real stalwarts of UK punk is just what the doctor ordered. On the other hand, it’s a quite a frustratingly disjointed and superficial album, but then, that was surely the idea in the first place.
Mike