(Rockstar) www.rockstarrecords.de
A disaffected yet hopeful bunch this lot are, blasting out a ferocious yet cheerily, infectiously tuneful punk'n'roll played with a savage intent, gusto and admirable punchy heart. There's a theme running thru these six wee tracks, that of a rallying call - not so much, thankfully, of sub-MC5 wannabe revolutionary hackneyed tripe - but more of a open your fucking eyes and take a good look around (at your home town, strangely one is like that too, closet Boss fans or just kinda pissed off?) at the state of shit. A lot of hopeful idealism offset with a grudging shrug of "Well, that's the way things are, but you gotta at least try" - "You have dreams of independence and a vision of a peaceful world to be, they'll turn it back on you in the name of liberty". There's a lot of similarities to early Stiff Little Fingers, especially with vocalist Marcus' double-barrelled bark, with slightly less pure rage, but then I'm not too aware of religious fundamentalists being involved in a pointless sectarian bloodbath slapbang in downtown Askersund, Sweden, so that's pretty understandable. Sometimes such stuff can get a little preachy but it's not too much like that here, moreso as I recently played Rose Tattoo's Freedom Song which was hideously cringeworthy. And at least they're not like Primal Scream who are now at a point where you're "YES, we know, it's not you that just thought all that shit up...". Oh, the songs? Short and sweet, chantalonga choruses, armourpiercing melodies and Scud scaring guitars, and the quite brilliant first song, rather bizarrely, reminds me of Mod-Revivalists Secret Affair.