“Stood on the corner of my street – could be anywhere…”
– ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Monster truck, boozed up brawn’n’rollin’ punk bruisers brandishing tales from under the smog stained grime of Birmingham where traditional trades (that you wouldn’t have wanted anyway) have been turfed up and replaced with a thousand condescending career opportunities in call centres or cafeterias and the cityscape itself is being airbrushed into an any city, UK. So step up The Blunts, Bashed Street Kids in giant-soled pneumatic shoes that leave imprints in your gourds the size of Godzilla’s hooves, a black leather protection jacket vesting in Rock’n’Roll the very primal power it’s always had but is often ignored. That is to light more than fags and aimless dreams of pop stardom but to provide a purpose and a sense of meaning under the flotsam of this fucked up, filthy world. Given a peculiarly Midlands kick of the sort that motorvated Sabbath and Priest - spurring them on with the conviction to get out of the confused conurbations and spaghetti junction traffic systems these guys play like their balls depend on it (in case you didn’t realise, they’ve already given their lives up to Rock’n’Roll) and sing with (power)plant-wilting breath delivered with the force of a Thai boxer’s clenched fist. Indeed, such St Andrews fault-lines to rival the San Andreas one like ‘A Place In Hell’ (neatly snatching Maiden’s ‘Another Life’ from the jaws of death) could be used to soundtrack those Japanese nutters smashing two tons of roof tiles with their heads on Chris Tarrant style TV shows. Massive paving slabs crash through time and space to knock whatever continuum you’re crawling through and bolster you with breeze-block sized bundles of barrack-shattering battering-ram-raiding bus-breaking powerboogie. Slamming tequila tumblers the size of the Arctic tundra with all the restraint of a sledgehammer on songs like ‘Better Off On My Own’, ‘Life On Hold’ and ‘Keep It To Myself’ demonstrate their fervent last man standing Rock’n’Roll demeanour. Blunt, sure, and straight to the point with more than enough good natured lunacy and psychotic bonhomie to take the battle to the emo brigade without so much as bending a string.

“Look out my window and I wipe way the dust, I see all the factories – dead end rust…”
– ‘I’ll Know When You’re Gone’  __________________________________________________

- Stu Gibson