Seaside Rebels - Changing Times ...

(EL 2015, 7" produced by Contra Records/Longshot Music)

A very good quality 4 songs EP from a newborn band from Rhodes. Seaside Rebels are a new band formed by ex members of some of the best oi! bands that Greece gave to the world in the last years and that now are disbanded, like: Oi! Askimoi and Broken Glasses. For us, of Oi from Europe redaction, this is one of the best releases of this year: we like the graphics (vintage, and with an atmosphere of good old days, "when the ships were made of wood and the men were made of iron, not as today!" ), and of course -we have to say it?- we like how this 7" fucking sounds! Simple, well done and strong as an hammer strike. This is their debut and, together, their consacration in the modern oi! scene: it's not simple for a four songs release to be so complete and so fucking great, but, hey, it's from stuff like this that you can recognize a great band from their birth.

An eye to strenght, an eye to melody: a perfect balance to make songs for the working class kids made by working class kids! Every chorus it's made to be an hymn, born to make the gigs on fire when played live, the voice it's rough but well used as the guitars: here you can hear a band that loves the classic oi! bands but that doesn't want to be a copy of that, that likes to play rude but doesn't need to be ignorant. What a pleasure to hear stuff like this!
 

The EP opens with the titletrack, the perfect example of what the Seaside Rebels want to do and what are gonna do. I love the scratchy guitar sound when the song starts and how they reuse it after the chorus as a bridge, and the chorus itself is a true bomb: "times are changing and i feel like i'm fighting a losing battle!". And to be sincere, the lyrics are one of the point of strenght of this work, no doubts about it. "Wrong or right" it's the weakest song here: i think it's a little anonymous. Let's pass to "Thrill of hunt", where the music and the voice it sounds like it's taken down just to make the chorus stronger: simple but very effective. To close the work, here's "Shadow of the past", a perfect singalong to make the gig on fire! It's the most english-sound song, it sounds like a 4 Skins track but with a more melodic attitude. The perfect ending that just makes you want to reput this EP on the stereo to listen it again and again!

So, what other to say? This band surely is not the most innovative in the actual oi! scene, but they know what to do and they do it well. Simple, strong and strong again! Their roots, as already said, comes from Oi! Askimoi and Broken Glasses, and this should already be a warranty for you. They ride the wave with other good bands like Bombardiers, Bishops Green, Close Combat. Do you need anything more?

1) Changing times
2) Wrong or right
3) Thrill of the hunt
4) Shadows of the past

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Hangover Generation/The Defectives - The Split

(CH/ITA 2015, 7" produced by Pogo77)

Two young bands from Switzerland and Italy and a strong wish to make some noise, the result? A good split EP for sure (at least for intenctions)! Both the bands play since three or four years ago (as i can see from their releases), so it's nice to find a limited repress edition of a 7" (the original was out in 2014), in these days where nobody seems to want to risk some money in new music (there are, of course some exception, but we all know that now for a band that press something on vynil, there are 100 bands that don't find anyone that supports them). Two songs for the A side owned the swiss mates with a fast, noisy street punk and other three songs for the B side, where the italian punx stallions put some pogo punk influenced by the japanese sound.

I like the graphics, rude but funny for sure and the attitude that move the whole EP, and i think the two bands are well mixed together, also if they play a very different kind of sound. These guys aren't technical champions and they neither want to do that, what you will own will be just an healty bunch of punx music, for some sides enjoyable also by the oi! fans.

As already said are the Hangover Generation that open the hostility, with "What I detest", a good piece of dark, shadowed old school punk, that reminds me of bands like Breakout, Suburban Uproar or, especially in this song, the never-too-cried Surf Nazis Must Die; you know what i mean: aggresive and nuclear-age music, in certain stuff it seems also near to some bands that play metal punk. "It's never enough" is too long for my taste: when you have to fill more than 200 seconds with a street punk riff it becomes a little hard to not becoming boring and, yeah, this song is not boring but, well, i don't get it, i can't get its meaning. It doesn't have a central point and that mixer work just makes all the stuff even more confused and confusing! 

Now it's the Defectives chance. For sure they are italians but, while listening to them, you would say just: "fucking nipponic people! They are always everywhere!" or some other Clint Eastwood style complaint. Nothing dark here, just some freaky, funny, catchy pogo punk rock like Ramones, Bad Engrish, Anger Flares, 00 Squad and so many more. Three notes riffs, a lot of choirs and nothing more than some demented music. I prefer, personally, this side because of this, is lighter, is more hearable and it's also well played and not a copy of other stuff, it gives me what i want when i want to laugh listening to music: the sensation that i'm not the only idiot drunk the thursday morning! I think my favourite song here is "Shall we pogo dance", that it's like the Defectives basic recipe.

Well, if you are a fan of rough-simple-fast punk music, you should give a listen to the A side, than if you like japanese pogo punx and some demented attitude, the B side will be your heaven. Some fresh air in a dead scene as the punk scene it's always a good news, and i think this EP could be a good starting point for european spikeheads to take back to their gloriuous history.

A
1) What I detest
2) It's never enough
B
3) This is pogo life
4) Fast and loud
5) Shall we pogo dance?

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Crown Court - Ruck And Roll

Here we are gonna talk about the new EP made by Crown Court, from London, and produced by Rebellion Records. Short, violent, angry: a perfect description for the three bitter tracks that are inside this 7", that follows (also with its similar sound) the first tape this band putted out in 2014 (a lot of brand new bands from England, hun?). It sounds a little too dirty, for sure it's not properly the classical oi band, but they are not unexperienced amateurs and the band got some already known faces (Violent Reaction, Arms Race and Abolition tell you something? the young promises of UKHC!), so don't expect for the classical "too simple" debut stuff. In fact, to be sincere, it's very simply and straight to the point stuff, but the songs are well built and they got a touch of UK82 style that emproves all. 

The opener is the best songs for us: a great tune, full of energy and with a good and rough guitar solo that it's like a thunder in your ears when it breaks into the song. The drumming is like an hammer and the voice is angry and hate-spreading as we like it most: fucking pure impact to start in the best way! "Style identified" it's the second song and it's a very English style song, taken from the early 80's stuff like Special Duties, and we like also when UK bands go deep into their past to take the best stuff their older brothers made back in the days and they use that stuff now, to make some cool music again. The end of this work is commited to "Away", that simply feed our doubts: it's not a bad song but we can't get the point, it's like NYHC putted in the middle of an EP that with NYHC has nothing to do, so nice song but what it should means here?

Of course, returning to the point, this is the first work after the tape (in free download on their bandcamp, you find the link to it under the tracklist), and, well, it got the sign of this on itself. The songs are cool, the sound is strong and a like how the they kick in the right spots, but, hell, it's fucking discontinuous! Passing from A to B side and it seems another band that try to make something different, and when you got just three songs, it's a little confusing to make like that, because what you are doing loses in impact. Anyway, as already said, this EP got a cool, angry and hungry sound, and the band is young, so it's a duty to support them, to buy it and we will wait for the next release, hoping that for that day they will choose straight line in composing.

London Diehards, Widowmakers, Oxley Midnight Runners, The Firm, these are just some names that pops in my brain listening to them, so give them a chance and take a good listen!

1) Three stretch
2) Syle identified
3) Away (gilpin rock)

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Rude Pride - Be True To Yourself

(SPA 2015, LP produced by Spirit of the Streets)

After just a couple of years of activity Rude Pride, from Madrid, has started to becoming a warranty on the european oi! scene. Their first, selftitled, EP was made by four songs of hard hitting music, and this LP is the perfect continuation of it, with a bunch of angry tunes, melodic without being pop and singable as well: the right music if you like to go to the gigs to sing until you got no more voice. Be true to yourself is the title of the album and well, for sure this album is true: it smells like boots, braces and of that smell of burning that electric razors make when you use them for too long (I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about!). No less, no more: skinheads music made by skinheads with a good taste in music and the ability to avoid the boring clichès of the genre.

Personally i love the intro, with that catchy guitar sound supported by the piano that seems like a revival of "Plastic gangster" that turns into a good piece of well played rnr oi!. "Wrong way" it's, for sure, the best song here, with a very Perkele taste and a chorus that enter inside your head and there's no way you can't remove it from there, but why you should want that? "Golden fists" it's truly a bomb, with a rythm that bring you to move your boots, no matter where you are, and "We'll never change" too, with a chorus that's a fist on your face. The guitar work is well made and it's the real column that makes to the whole album to not be boring or old, there a lot of solos and "rocknrolling" riffs that give some energy, that is never a bad thing, with a tiny sound, so different from the usual heavy distorted sound that's like fresh air. Of course it's not all gold: "Crisis sons"it sounds too much as a filler, and it's not the only one: "Flag on fire" it's a little too already heard, the ska song "Living a lie" don't say anything more, but today it's a little hard to be innovative with this kind of music. 

Of course, this is a deput LP and it's normal that got some weak points but here quality surpasses this little defect without any problem, so don't compromise your listening with our fussiness, because, truly, this is a very good album, the kind of that never tires you from listening, so pump up the fucking volume! 

You like Perkele? Here there are their proper heirs. With this i don't want to mean that they are copies or something like this, that's not the case. But they got the same attitude that allows to put together a taste for melody and the ability in making aggressive songs. Rude Pride are a must-to-know if you are intrested in the new european oi! scene, as Booze & Glory, another band that likes to play with 90's sound.

1) Hated and rejected
2) Wrong way
3) Outta my way
4) Crisis sons
5) No problem
6) Golden fists
7) Screaming oi!
8) We'll never change
9) Flag on fire
10) Living a lie

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Sparrow Falls - A Brimstone Harvest

(NL 2015, LP produced by Ring of Fire)

"A brimstone harvest", by Sparrow Falls seems to me one of the best releases of this first part of 2015. The album contains 10 tracks of a very experimental oi! from Netherland: i just can't find any band to make a comparison because they are the first in line in trying to do something like this. A pretty oi! sound is the foundation on wich they build the songs, adding and mixing this sound with a country/bluegrass attitude. How many oi! bands use a banjo in some songs? I don't know the number, but for sure, Sparrow Falls got a banjo and a keyboard and, fuck, they are pretty intense and good in what they are doing, like it's a freaking country oi! music style. Of course it stinks a little like it's music for fucking indies or hipsters,, but the mix is so strange that deserves at least a listen, with that impression of post-punk, and a melancholic attitude above all the songs. It's not a coincidence if this LP is produced by Ring of Fire Records, not a traditional oi! label, that on its catalog got people like Koffin Cats, Nowhereboung and other bands that like to mix together different genres. Not for the people who thinks oi! was born and died with Last Resort, if you know what i mean.

The singer got some melodic skills and for sure use it without abusing, to build a strange atmosphere that the other guys strenghten with a powerful wall of music made of a lot of levels where one overlying the other without deleting it. Nothing hard, nothing rude, just a fine work of construction that can be a good alternative and/or a good cue to renew this sound.

The album opens the dance with "The festering", a rock'n'roll track that introduces us to what "A bromstone harvest" want to be. Going on we find the best tracks of the LP: the titletrack (that mix together country athmosphere and epic sound), "Fragments of once", "Wrong eyed Jesus in the trunk" and the final one "Berlin, you're murder". The other songs got a too heavy indie influence and this ruins the listening for people used to a more rude sounds, so "Shipburner", "Rooster's lament", "Belarusian white" and "The calm", that we save for his melancolic attitude (we can be romantic, sometimes!).

In few words, if you like oi!bands with innovative and experimental sounds you'll love Sparrow Falls, that got this kind of messing the cards in the NDA. All their production is a mix, an half breed with different genres and stuff, something that shouldn't work but, it works, and with an high quality work behind! For sure they are rare, and i can't name (as already said) any bands that make this kind of stuff, just the Boxcutter Boys for their use of acoustic guitars, and, maybe the Thin Lizzy (that were also one of the most important influences of the Slades). About this review we, writers of the blog, were a little doubtful, 'cause of its strange genre and 'cause it isn't the classical skinhead sound, but well, why not try? Listen to it, in case trash it. 

1) The Festering
2) A Brimstone Harvest
3) Shipburner
4) Rooster's Lament
5) Fragment's Of Once
6) The Calm
7) Harlequin
8) Wrong Eyed Jesus In The Trunk
9) Belarusian White
10) Berlin, You're Murder Facebook Bandcamp

Rixe - Coupes & Blessures

(FR 2015, 7" produced by La Vida Es Un Mus Discos)

Rixe are a new french band that came out with a killer 4-songs EP in the february of 2015, with people from a lot of other bands (Lion's Law it's a name that tells you something?). The formula is pretty easy at the first sight: some good old oi! like they Nabat, Komintern Sect and some other bands used to do back in the days; but it's quite hard to make old school music without being trite and boring as fuck (how many bands we know that are just photocopies of 80's bands?) and, well, the Rixe are able to revive this kind of sound, to remake it in an original and personal way. The guitar is dirty like it's rusty, the drumming is simple and the bass lines are pretty simple too, but they are the real driving lines of the songs. If you are in search for fast stuff this is not for you, here you'll find just good and classical songs, like the fathers of this genre used to do.

It's quite hard to find copies of this vinyl thanks to the big amount of sales it realizes and it's bad on internet the lyrics were impossible to find, but trust us: if you find this 7" buy it immediatly. It worth the price.

The EP opens with "Razzia", where we immediatly get in touch with all the best weapons this band got: simplicity, the capacity in using it and a rough voice that support at the best the song costruction. Then it comes "Enfatigables", maybe the best tune of the EP, with an intro of bass and a fast-paced, aggressive and punctuated rhythm that just leads your head to think about what's the best way to get in a fight right now! "Larmes de crocodile" is a little faster and maybe is the less impressive track but it's nothing you can't forgive to this guys. The fourth and final song is the title track, and is also the longest of the EP, the only one who passes the 3:00 minutes lenght. The chorus has some vague melodic element which increseases the epic, like, also, the guitar solo, very simple but perfect in this situation.

Resuming: a band that has decided to retake in hands the elements which were at the base of 80's italian/french oi! music, and, fuck, they have realized a great EP, simple but very funny to hear to. Of course, the experience of years in playing music got an heavy weight in this, because they don't just reply what bands like Plastic Surgery, Enfanterie Sauvage (just to name two bands we didn't quote before) did, they make something new and of good quality.

1) Razzia
2) Enfatigables
3) Larmes de crocodile
4) Coups & blessures

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