Firstly apologies to Greg and all at Mr Zippy for taking an age to write this review. I’ve been slack – sorry. Pleasantries over, let’s crack on to the nitty gritty and dissect the Bristol mob’s latest release and their first for Golf Records, ‘Ambition Is Critical’.
Being a huge Finch fan I was keen to listen to album opener ‘New Beginnings’, but was quickly disappointed when I realised it wasn’t a cover of the Temecula’s finest opening track. Instead it’s poppy skate punk that rattles along with guitars and drums blazing. A high point for sure. From here though, ‘Ambition Is Critical’ is a mixed bag. There are some good moments, but very few great ones, leaving you with a sense of having seen and heard it all before. ‘You Ain’t Gonna Believe’ is the perfect example, a track which plods along to a Pennywise-influenced drum beat and slashing guitar riff.
The likes of ‘Twenty Something’ and ‘+/-‘ are decent enough songs but neither hit the spot, although you can sense that in a live environment the tracks are likely to enduce some kind of mosh-pit activity. There’s nothing wrong with the record at all, just nothing that really stands out. There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of a message and at times it does come a little too close to 4ft Fingers for my liking.
The musicianship on ‘Doing An Endo’ is impressive and the faster-than-Linford Christie-with-a-rocket-up-his-ass ‘Blame Yourself’ is pretty good too, but for every two half decent songs you end up with a stinker and ‘Longfinger’ carries on the tradition. ‘Safety Net’ sounds scarily like Whitmore and ‘Road Movie’ is so drenched in So-Cal sunshine that you have to look outside to see if you haven’t swapped Costa del Grimsby for Santa Barbara.
At the end of the day ‘Ambition Is Critical’ is a nice record, but it doesn’t have the necessary clout to be considered among the heavyweights of the skate punk genre. They’ve just played in support of labelmates 4ft Fingers and on the basis of this record, they’ll be in the shadows of their friends for a little longer yet.
www.mrzippy.co.uk
Paul