I always seem to start ska reviews with a disclaimer saying ‘I used to like ska but now I’ve grown out of it’ blah blah blah which I kind of feel compelled to add. Put simply, I know very little about the genre anymore. I know I liked Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake 10 years ago and I know we have some excellent homegrown bands that take ska and give it their own unique twist, but everything inbetween is ultimately something I have little knowledge about. Infact, if I wasn’t sent items for review, I probably wouldn’t hear any new ska bands.
Streetlight Manifesto have kind of crept up under the radar a little bit. Their re-release and re-recording of Catch 22‘s ‘Keasby Nights’ was under-promoted and under-valued; I’m not even sure why they did it, probably to stop somebody else re-pressing the original. But it’s an odd way to resume a career as a band. ‘Somewhere In The Between’ is a grower. I didn’t like it much when I first heard it, but it has grown on me over repeated listens. It’s nothing spectacular, it’s just really, really solid. So if you like your ska to be chunky and riffy, with solid brass parts, then you will like this record. It’s not slapstick in the same way RBF are and it’s not as catchy as the likes of LTJ, so imagine a band somewhere in the between. Arf…