INDEPENDENT
Ten tracks shared between three bands here on this CD, each from the north west of England, and each with their own take on the whole ska punk thing. Sense Of Urgency are up first and really blast out of the speakers.... if it was on vinyl you'd check that you hadn't put it on 45rpm by mistake! Cracking fast punky stuff, but still with plenty of parping brass in the mix. Stand Out Riot are the highlights for me, just three songs from them but each one is really different (which is always hard to do with ska punk i reckon...). "Black widow" is fantastic, and "law and hors'doeuvers" sounds a bit like early Sonic Boom Six with the male / female vocals. After the first listen i wasn't all that impressed, but repeated listening is essential as they're really grown on me, proper cracking stuff! A War Against Sound are the only one of the bands not to use brass and are a bit more indie / emo / gruff punk than the others. They're pretty decent, but a bit of a disappointment after Stand Out Riot. In all this is a cracking CD, i'd not heard any of these bands before so it's a cool introduction to what's going on with UK ska punk. Full lyrics included for each band as well which i always like to see, and as a bonus they're all pretty decent. I really must pop up to Manchester to one of the TNS gigs some time...
ROCK SOUND
In between recording podcasts, running a distro and publishing a fazine, Manchester's TNSrecords have somehow found time to release a split CD showcasing three very promising ska-punk bands. Sense Of Urgency sound like a bull in atrumpet shop and their rowdy ska-core tunes get the record started. Next up, Stand Out Riot deliver some top tracks reminiscent of early catch 22, though their horn riffs occasionally sail too close to the cringey pirate fad which often plagues what's left of the UK ska scene. A WarAgainstSound's Capdown-meets-Howards Alias vibe is tight and technical and so they're reason number three to check out this CD.
PUNK NEWS
Admittedly, this split plays more like three EPs in a row than a linear album, but it still works. We've got three bands whose sounds are hugely different, but who are united by their schizophrenia. Sense of Urgency don ’t know whether they’re playing poppy ska or...erm...Born/Dead. Stand Out Riot don’t know whether they’re playing gypsy/cabaret songs or skacore and A WarAgainstSound don’t know whether they’re playing second-wave ska or post-hardcore.
SOU are first up with four short sharp shocks that live up to the band’s name. The lead vocals are like a throttled Lawrence Arms with a Leftover Crack-esque tag-team arrangement intensifying the urgency. Some melodies and horns of a poppy spirit demonstrate a band heading for an album that’ll sound something like Star Fucking Hipsters one day.
Unfortunately, SOR have taken their anarchic cabaret a bit too far with their contribution. Their three tracks have been bashed a bit too hard with the genre-busting stick and have been dragged, bruised and battered past the four-minute mark. It's a shame as their last CD was one of the best of 2009!
Last up are AWAS, representing a treaty to skank signed by a whole host of influences. Sounding similar to Capdown in many ways, they slip in some nice guitar riffs reminiscent of early Strung Out. That said, the song construction takes more of a post-hardcore form similar to, for lack of a better example, early Thrice.
This CD is totally worth picking up, with two nice tasters of things to come and one good reason to check a band’s back catalogue.
STREET VOICE UK
This is the latest release from TNS in Manchester and what a beauty it is too! There's three bands 'Sense Of Urgency', 'Stand Out Riot' and 'AWarAgainstSound' who between them serve up ten wicked Ska-Punk tracks. For me Stand Out Riot are the best band on this release but it's fair to say that the other two bands aren't far behind. The quality of tracks on this release is pretty wicked with no fillers. For me this EP is best turned up loud and listened to with a few beers and with tracks such as 'The Night We Exploded' (Sense Of Urgency), 'This Is Not A Movement' and 'Law And Hurs' Doeuvres' (Stand Up Riot) and 'To Ben Pitman A Cause' (AWarAgainstSound) you really can't go wrong. The production is spot on and it comes well packaged. What a release to start 2010 with – Yes! 9/10
ICE CREAM FOR QUO
This CD is shared between SoU, SOR and AWAS. With a ska/punk hybrid thing going on, Sense of Urgency include a trombone and a trumpet in their blare arsenal, while Stand Out Riot feature two sax players. A WarAgainstSound stick to a ruthlessly efficient vocal/guitar/bass attack. It's full on stuff. Francis Hunts colourful artwork shows a huge crab, an octipus and various other aquatic imagery, continuing the eerie sequence of sea related imagery that has made its way into this issues CD pile.
MOVING NORTH UK
TNS 3-WAY SPLIT feat. Sense of Urgency, Stand Out Riot, A War Against Sound
I’m gonna give this review some backstory. It’s 14:48 on a rainy Sunday in Manchester. Last night I got twatted and taking the shrink wrap off the CD took me a good 5 minutes and so did typing the above two lines. I open the CD case and see and angry starfish on the CD, this has been a great start! Kicking off the CD are 4 tracks by Sense Of Urgency which is very fast and very snotty. Pretty good, but not for my ears in my current state. Their next song carries on the theme of ‘catchy, fast, snotty aggressive’ this is going well! The brass on track 3 is pleasing to my ears before it rips into another snotty song about, hell I can’t understand. Probably good though. I’ve decided the singer sounds like Brendan Kelly on speed, which is definitely a compliment in my eyes. Last song is called “Silent Seeth”. Ah, silence. Wouldn’t mind some of that right now. All 4 songs are in danger of mixing into each other, but all sound pretty good. And the first two are short enough to be their own, I guess? What the fuck am I talking about.
Sense of Urgency 4/5
Next is Stand Out Riot, Francis gave me this CD and a wad of money to review it, call it a bribe if you will. “This Is Not A Movement” starts with a lone chord, rung out. And some gnarly vocals talking about sitting in front of computers. Then comes a pretty rad part of the song with pirate-y brass and some upstrokes to caress my ears. Enough of that song. Next track (Track 6). More pirate-y feelings coming through on this track too, I can imagine Johnny Depp in the Retro Bar with some rum dancing around like a douche. Vocally this starts as a metal lecture, I wish they existed then I might actually turn up to University instead of slowly turning into an alcoholic. Bouncy chorus is fun as fuck!
Stand Out Riot’s last track is called, well it’s got something French in the title, so it’s gonna be average right? Wrong! Starts with some killer Streetlight Manifesto sounding brass and clean guitars and a sexy little Jamaican drum thing in the background. Francis is pretty much rapping by this point about police brutality which is a naughty thing and shouldn’t be done. ACAB and all that. I’ve had my foot bouncing throughout this song and it could be cause it’s very catchy or because my entire body is shaking. Stand Out Riot sound like if Streetlight Manifesto had sex with Beat The Red Light and then had sex with their sister The Skints in Josef Fritzls basement. Right.
Stand Out Riot 4/5
Last on this 3-way split is A War Against Sound. Flicking through the lyrics seems these guys write pretty socially aware songs about politics, values and something about ready meals?. Musically it has some killer metal rifts mixed in with some punk rocking meaty bits. I think this band maybe missing some brass, ska bands without brass don’t always do it for me (except The Flatliners) but either way you can’t really just put A War Against Sound in the ska category. They’re pretty good, pounding drums, relentless pounding drums. A funky bassline occasionally kicks in, matched with some skanky upstrokes. Sincere vocals are a plus point and any band that has something decent to write about should definitely deserve to be heard.
A War Against Sound 3.5/5
The quality of all these recordings is pretty fucking good, TNS have got 3 pretty decent bands on this comp and y’all should definitely check it out. No idea where you can get it from, Retro Bar? TNS Shows? Put some effort in.
OK so most of this has been me moaning about my hangover. Sorry.
PUNKTASTIC
TNS ( ‘That’s Not Skanking’, acronym fans) has fingers in a fair few pies. From fanzines to podcasts by way of gig promotions and a record label, the strictly DIY Manchester brand is certainly getting itself about. ‘TNS008’ (the eighth release on the fledgling label) is a three-way split featuring a bunch of bands that are probably described more often than not as ‘ska’. The offenders: Sense of Urgency, Stand Out Riot and A WarAgainstSound.
SENSE OF URGENCY
Talk about your spot-on monikers. In less than eight minutes the Stoke/Manchester sextet has bashed out four hectic stabs of speed-ska cum gritty street punk. Fast and angry is the name of the game, with verses littered with unintelligible vocals and choruses that sound like they’ve been lifted from vintage Dropkick Murphys. Basically, if you mangled The Filaments, We Are The Union and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones it may just sound something like this. That is a good thing, if you were unsure. 4/5
STAND OUT RIOT
This is a musical monstrosity. There are carnivalesque moments, a gypsy flavour, some lyric-spitting hip-hop, big hooks, big brass, big upstrokes, and even some pirate paraphernalia. It really shouldn’t work so, obviously then, it does! It’s a musical monstrosity then that you just can’t help but enjoy. The stylistic hotchpotch is just about balanced. The fast punk-rock lynchpin (very akin to run-in buddies, Kickback UK) for the most part galvanizes the peripheral tinkering, whilst the varied and often backing vocals make for a decent aside. There’re a few moments where there’s just a little too much going on, but mostly this is intriguingly solid stuff. 3.5/5
A WARAGAINSTSOUND
You can’t help but feel sorry for this Blackburn quartet. Such is the reckless abandon in terms of stylistics of the two bands previous that the outfit comes off as a little one dimensional, and a little safe if you will. If we’re being simplistic, this is pretty much ska-punk in the vein of Capdown, which in itself is no bad thing, just well trodden ground. It’s done well enough (actually, this part of the split sounds best produced) and actually shines at the moments when there’s a little technical jiggery-pokery going on (there’s the odd moment that puts you in mind of Failsafe’s first record). If you take these three tracks on their own merit, the band has something, and will certainly be worth checking out again. Unfortunately, on this release A WarAgainstSound is a little overshadowed. 2.5/5
Alex
BANANA TOWN
As tours started to come thick and fast, this review ’s taken a while to get itself published. We apologise to the label and all the bands.
After TNS008 landed on our doorstep, Bananatown had a quick chat on facebook to some of the guys at TNS Records about exactly how they’d like the record reviewed: “too many people”, we learned, “review skacore as ska”. That’s a valid point, though there’s not really a total consensus yet as to exactly what skacore is. Let’s face it: incorporating new elements in to a term that’s as broad as ska already was is always going to leave a lot of room diversity, and, inevitably, dissent.
The difficulty for me, then, is to neatly sum up a genre, and, trust me, I hate using genres anyway, that could stretch from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to the Flaming Tsunamis and, in doing so, remain cool in the eyes of one of the UK’s more discerning grass-roots labels, and one with a remarkable strength of passion for their music. No pressure, then.
Well, when the going gets tough, the tough turn to Urban Dictionary. Just for back-up, you know. And to deflect the blame.
One brilliantly named user refers to “Ska mixed with hardcore. Fast speed ska and bone crunching acoustic lyrics [whatever bonecrunching acoustic lyrics are] and name checks Folly, the Flaming Tsunamis and Big D. The next tells us “Almost all Skacore bands come from Britain and include bands such as Capdown, Lightyear.. and Sonic Boom Six.
What we’ll settle on, then, is basically a mash of a raw, angst-fuelled hardcore vocal and guitar riffs with room for a more old-school ”whoah-oh” backing vocals, horns, and the odd upstroke. There’s more to it than a marriage of ska and hardcore that gives it its name, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Sense of Urgency open the record, and get four tracks to the others’ three. Three of those, though, clock in at less than five minutes’ length in total. Predictably, the pace they’ve set is blistering, and their sound is good, really good. So good that you can’t fail to be struck by it within the first few seconds. It’s basically a headlong sprint through a wall of high-speed sound. Imagine having the music fired at you out of a carwash when you’ve got your roof down and you’re most of the way there. From the first snotty, impassioned growl to the closing thud of all instruments in unison, opening track Glory Days is basically skacore’s answer to the hit-and-run, but faster, and it sets the tone perfectly for the rest of their tracks. Lowbrow is closer to two minutes than one, but comes out of the traps just as fast. The Night We Exploded sees as song explored in all of its detail for the first time, and it’s clear there’s plenty in there once it gets the chance to be properly scrutinised. Just like the other tracks, it’s packed with hooks yet bigger and meaner than would really be feasible at first peek. Everything’s been executed perfectly, and the songs here are an absolute joy. Quite what they must be like in concert is something I fear I can only imagine, but, having been pinned back and battered with glorious riffs and melodies, yes, melodies, and having had the breath knocked out of me by the sheer speed of what’s just hit me (and a cold, I admit), it’s something I’m desperate to experience. By the end of Silent Seeth you’ll be gasping for air. And that doesn’t happen too often, eh?
Quite sensibly, perhaps, Stand out Riot kick off This Is Not a Movement with a gentle strum across one guitar. Don’t be fooled, though, vocals build over an ominous drum beat before the song kicks in proper. Drawing strength and power from three vocalists and three horn players, when this does kick in it’s really something to behold. The record’s first upstroke, while totally skankable, is something of a reprieve, a quick breather before the song runs off again, becoming a guitar solo, and then a breakdown that steadily gathers power in a crescendo of vocal and brass before clicking instantly back in to first gear and running away with you again. Tessa Hunt’s violin, though not especially prominent, is a particular treat. I’ll leave you to watch out for it. Black Widow is a bit of a departure, in that it’s almost spoken throughout, and slows at parts to a rhythmic, fist-pumping chant. Throughout, though, it keeps hold of that brooding, sinister undertone, it still showcases all the instruments and finds time to break itself down in to its component parts: one horn riff is almost eerie for a second, in a way that’s almost dub, before a high-pitched violin that’s nearly Gogol Bordello before the whole song returns in all its glory and suddenly disappears to be replaced equally quickly by Law and Hors d’Oeuvres.
The band’s final track is stunning: a bassline that’s almost jazz in spots, and vocal that swings from hardcore to nearly rap and back, and horns. Couldn’t ask for much more, could you? It’s delivered at times in that same frenetic sprint, and at times slows to a more introspective, foreboding, rhythm-heavy stomp, before vanishing altogether. All together, their three songs are incredible: these guys are a seriously talented band. The songs are good but the way they’ve been put together here is really exceptional. Again breathless, though in a different way and somewhat lost for words (again, that’s a rarity), I’ve had to press pause here for sec.
Returning to AWarAgainstSound, I’ve stumbled on three tracks that bring another different take on the word skacore. To Ben Pitman a Cause opens with a gentle, slowly building bassline that’s joined by drums and guitar and declines numerous opportunities to take off in to a riot of riffs, screams, etc. It’s almost a novelty, in this context, for a band not to include a horn-section. These guys are a classic drums-bass-and-two-guitars four-piece, and they all sing. This opening track is five minutes in length, and teases at various points, breaking in to upstrokes, riffs, and chanted vocals without ever soaring in to the epic rock that it often hints at. That’s no bad thing: there are loads to enjoy about this little song. By the time it fades out around duelling guitars and bass and a heartfelt vocal, To Ben Pitman a Cause has done plenty to please.
For Nothing and No one takes over, and continues at a similar vein: you’re expecting a crescendo, but, at every drop out, AWAS return with choppy, peppy, ska guitars and a raw nasal vocal that’s almost spat. In these places they’re the most punk of all the bands on the record, in the musical sense, and there’s more than a nod or two towards the greats of that scene. There’s also a hint of Joey Terrifying, or Ghymp, for example, but, though evocative in places, their songwriting is pretty idiosyncratic, as well as thoroughly dance-and-skank-able. The superbly named Pull Your Twos Out Your Pocket Then Say “Do You Mean These?” finishes the disc, and is notably the biggest, rawest and most powerful of AWAS’s three tracks. Again, Ed half sings and half sneers it, and then, all at once, as it gently fades to quiet for a moment, it thumps back in with a boom, a heart-felt cry over a crescendo of guitar and the drums effectively attacked, it’s more than half-way through their last song, and they’ve allowed themselves to rock out. It’s still brilliantly executed, comes as something of a surprise, albeit a surprise that they’ve hinted at all along, and then they’re gone. The CD spins to a stop in front of me. Phew: this has been tiring stuff; it’s a great little record and one that promises a peak in to the future of our scene – especially in the North. Respect must go to the folk at TNS for the love and effort they’ve put in to gathering such a fine selection of bands and putting all of this together. It’s been well worth it, guys.
MILD PERIL
Yet another release from the prolific TNS records, most of whom reading this should know about.This is a split between 3 northern bands with their own unique take on ska. First up and my favourite of the three were Sense of Urgency. The 4 tracks on here lean towards fast melodic punk, something like Rentokill or Kid Dynamite but with horns to give it a more ska core fell. They stae link 80 as an influence and I can definitely hear that from the offset, maybe a little Slapstick in there too? Yep, 4 super fast, super good songs. Stand Out Riot are much more ska punk based and I really enjoyed their 3 tracks of fast catchy tunes. Bloody awesome musicians and I can see why my mate Fat Joe always raves on about them, with loads of other genres creeping in from twisted folk, klezma gypsy, metal chugginess, mixed with some MCing, they have a pretty unique sound.
Lastly onto A WarAgainstSound. The first time I have come across these and their 3 tracks prove again that ska can be played on a wide range of scales. This time round it has a more hardcore feel to it and the tracks on here immensely impressed me and reminded me a little of the first time I heard the Hijacks and thought wow, this is how ska punk should sound. Liked these massively.