Album Review: Millie Manders & The Shut Up - "Telling Truths, Breaking Ties"

 

We're slightly late off the mark with this one as it came out late last year but Millie Manders & The Shut Up are one of those bands who seem to have been picking up a lot of mentions of late so we decided to give this a spin to see what all the fuss is about.

The phrase "21st century punk" is one that's overused a bit and, for those with longer memories it may bring up unpleasant fratpunk-related memories but Telling Truths, Breaking Ties is definitely an album that merits the tag. The energy and anger of '77 is here but this is definitely a more modern take on the formula with the clean crisp production and use of Gold Blade style horns on several tracks showing a group trying to take the sound off to somewhere it hasn't really been regularly before. There's a nod to groups like the Skints on the spoken word likes of Bitter and the dubby Poor Man's Show but they're different enough to the likes of the above that you couldn't ever describe them as copyists. The gentle junkie lament Glitter Mix is another good curveball which shows that Millie has a pretty good voice on her as well as being able to scream her venom and shows the versatility of the band musically. Not Okay even sounds like My Chemical Romance with the tedious drama queen theatrics replaced by genuine panic and anger.

Lyrically, the themes are pretty universal ones - heartbreak (Your Story), depression (Here We Go Again (Black Dog), Not Okay) and political anger (Poor Man's Show and the environmental crisis referencing Panic) but Manders has enough energy and ferocity to her voice that she sounds sincere and that the words hit home with lethal precision.

All in all, I was very impressed by this - Millie Manders & the Shut-Up are a band with their heads screwed on who know that while it's always good to keep the energy and anger of your forebears, punk music has to keep moving forward if it's to survive and not become an irrelevant museum piece. Essentially then they'er the anti-Greta Van Fleet and I can think of no better recommendation for you to go and give Telling Truths, Breaking Ties a listen than that.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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