Hailing from China this lot are using the means of Punk Rock in the best possible sense in it's original symbolising of freedom and the individual. That they play powerful yet derivative music isn't detracting from the heartening spreading of our much cherished ideals of liberty and equality in the eyes of the law, and all that. What? Shut it this is about the music man pure and simple. Their very idealism is endearing on songs like 'Coming To The USA' and 'Fun And Fight Tonight'...and 'Stay Free' possibly has more resonance here than old man Joe could ever possibly have imagined in 1978. Hooligan chant anthemic choruses, particularly on opener 'That's What I Know' and 'Fun And Fight...' are joyfully belted out in ways that make me envision an Independence Day (film) scenario...people all over the world stopping to wassail us with a refrain...peasant farmers in the wheatfields of the Ukraine, steelworkers in Pittsburgh, revelers in a tavern in Munich, scallies eating chips out of a newspaper in Hull...on second thoughts maybe not them...'Second Hand Pogo' is a nice skewered ska stab at the uniformity of much of the punkaskabilly scene 'Did you get the Doctor Martens / Did you get the Oi on your T-shirt / have you got the chain on your wallet' to a Clash infested Rancid ska tune, with the semi-spluttering Strummer-y muttering and murmuring vocals present throughout. 'Summer Afternoon' shows some pop chops here too but ultimately it seems the spread of West Coast punk stylings are unstoppable forces but I'd sooner welcome this hopeful set than the putrid pap of Offspring and Green Day's puerile punk posturings anyday.
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-Stu Gibson