Album Review: Spunk Volcano & The Eruptions - "Barry Milner Is Thick"

 

There are times in life when you want an album that'll genuinely challenge your senses, that'll take you to a higher plane of musical consciousness and genuinely open your mind to see things as you've never seen them before. And then there are times when you just think "nah, sod that" and want to put something simple, straightforward and catchy (and ideally as foul-mouthed as possible) to sing and swear along to. And that's where Spunk Volcano & The Eruptions come in.

Now on their fifth album, the group's last album Double Bastard was a good effort which only slightly came undone via its sheer length at 25 songs making it a bit much to get through in one go. However, from the sheer power pop rush of opener Broken Hearts Make Better Songs and excellent former single Football In The Sun (Ossie Ardiles), you can tell that this is gonna be a good 'un.

Essentially you can divide Barry Milner Is Thick almost exactly in half. On the one hand, there's the trademark fast-paced punk anger that we're used to the Eruptions coming up with on the likes of Hard As Nails and Swiss Army Dickhead while on the other, there's a new more melodic almost power-pop side coming out (albeit with all the enjoyable foul-mouthedness of yore present and correct) on Soldier On and former single Tomorrow's Promises. It's a tricky tightrope to walk but fair play to Spunk and the lads, they manage it with minimal fuss and in doing so they might just have come up with their strongest effort to date. Hell, they even manage to come up with a surprisingly tender ballad to close the album in Caving In (although it does kick in with the guitars and drums halfway through) and carry it off well which is something I never thought I'd say about this lot.

It's certainly the Eruptions’ most varied effort to date and shows this band are growing in confidence all the time with the band swinging with consummate ease from the full on pop rush of Looking For Something to the sheer vitriol of This Is Fucking Shit. Guaranteed to keep existing Eruptions fans happy, if there's any justice then Barry Milner Is Thick will hopefully also bring Spunk and his crew a whole load of new converts on board. Recommended.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 (9/10)