Unless – Demo

“Grimsby.” Say it. It’s not the sort of word, or more to the point, town, that you associate with anything but fishing. However, aside from being the home of the reason we are all here, one Mr. Paul @ Punktastic, it is also the home of Unless, a four piece punk band, barely out of their teens, but making great progress in the U.K scene with their “Fake Laughter E.P” and also this small demo I received. Once on personal terms with the much missed legendary Radio One DJ John Peel, the band had two tracks played by him across British air waves, the second due to popular demand, or I quote from Peel himself, “Last time we played one played one from them, stacks of stacks of text messages came in, you don’t have to do that again! The entire population of Grimsby, well, obviously that’s an exaggeration, but about 15 of them anyway….”

Unless have each track on this demo “Alternative” and “Last Gun” opened and closed by the exact Radio transmission from when Peel played their tracks. Whether it is show off their achievement, (which to be fair is a credible one) or whether or not it is a sign of respect to the great DJ Peel himself, is with them, but to me it over wraps the songs, which as they stand hardly clock up at much over 2 minutes per track, and at the don’t really freshen you up in that time.

For a punk band with plenty of shouting, Unless are pretty weak. There sound is bland and although they have shared stages with a few of the U.K’s better established underground bands, I find it hard to see on the basis of these two short tracks what all the fuss is about. I’d be interested to hear their full demo, and whether or not it opens up my eyes to a bigger picture, but at the minute I see poor musical ideas and a garage band that needs a lot of tightening up.

Pete