It's rare that I review a punk album, but I was sent this one directly and felt like taking it on. The band in
question, Eat Dirt, is new, born of "the spiralling storm of political idiocy and rising tensions throughout the
United Kingdom" and, according to the promo sheet, expressing real anger as a result. I suppose I can see that. I
remember reading a local left-wing newspaper back in the early 2000s, crediting George W. Bush for the renewed interest
in punk rock after late-90s electronica slacking, so the Age of Brexit (on one side of the Atlantic) and Trump (on the
other) should give a similarly renewed impetus to punk-rock angst, right?
Well, maybe a little. The singer (all members go unnamed) roars out the lyrics in a strong, London-accented voice.
It's punk, so pretty much everything is power chords, not riffing, but the guitars have a nice fat tone. But I'm not
sure I really hear any more anger in this one than in something by, say, Megadeth, or Nine Inch Nails,
whose frontmen could always make themselves sound like they were having an extremely bad day. Nor do the songs seem
particularly political to me: Vague themes of rebellion and uprising, the same as tons of other punk since the late 70s,
predominate. Maybe if the promotional literature hadn't kept mentioning how angry these guys were, I'd have lower
expectations.
It's not a disaster or anything; the music has some punch to it. But the energy of the songs is on the light side,
and at any rate it's been done before, and better, by many of the punk bands of the 80s.
Bandcamp: https://eatdirtuk.bandcamp.com/releases.