“I never knew just what to do
With the square root of 22...” – ‘Rock’n’Roll Outl4w’

At last! An acerbic blast of anti-McFly airwave freshener from this youthful 4-piece fashioning street punk from the safety of the playground and giving many an established band a run for their filthy lucre in sheer energy and attitude. Whilst you might have to dig deep to get over the eternally gurning photos - unless you’re either a huge Blink 182 fan or Jimmy Pursey apologist - and the distinct possibility that they’re a set of stereotypical precocious brats they at least show that punk spirit has permeated through the last 30 years.

Not afraid to mention mum (yep, the rebellious I won’t clean my room foot stamper ‘My mum Says’) and Dad they write about what they know true to the fervour of ’76-’77. While kids’ll love it for such reasons, the ‘grown-ups’, or older children amongst us, will relish the delivery and the hope that songs such as ‘Be Yourself’ and ‘Television Addict’ bring, as they deflate the dire Daily Mail headlines of the state of the youth today.

‘Television Addict’ may be a trite topic to be getting into, bemoaning as it does reality show daytime TV drivel, but give thanks at your next tuna and cucumber sandwich fete that there’s a young chap here pouring scorn on those who live their life by the TV guide and to whom Panorama, Horizon and Dispatches could well be just dishes that those funny foreigners eat.

And if you think ‘Junk Food’, possibly the only song to have the word ‘golly’ in it since Little Richard set the stall out, isn’t exactly the most rebellious song in the world, then you’re just an old curmudgeon. Similarly, eyes could be rolled at ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Outl4w’, which would never win in a stand-off with Rose Tattoo – but then come on, who would, and do you think the Tatts’d start anything? – but the lyrics only reflect what Chuck Berry was writing about, albeit less poetically, and the music versus maths didn’t matter much when it came to according Ben E. King classic status.

Apt covers of Sham 69’s ‘If The Kids Are United’ and The Ramones version of Tom Waits ‘I Don’t Wanna Grow Up’ (tho’ your voice’ll sound better broken and battered, son!) raise a smile and a thumb or two and are, as all of this, dispatched with enough character and common room crunch to avoid being twee.

If I’d been told about this it would have been met with utter disdainful sarcasm I quite suspect. But who’s to say a set of mid to pre-teens shouldn’t stick two fingers out from under their duvet when mum wants to clean their sheets, socks and hankies. More than Hanson, check how young members of bands like The Slits, X-Ray Spex, Vice Squad and Eater were in Punk’s original day. Sure, they weren’t always up to much but that’s a whole ‘nother 3CD concept album.
__________________________________________________

- Stu Gibson