Nite Songs

Buster Shuffle are one of those bands who really should be better known than they are. Now well into their second decade, their upbeat and very British take on ska music has seen them labelled as the 21st century answer to Madness which is high praise indeed but if you've ever caught the pure rush of one of their live gigs or heard albums such as Our Night Out  and their excellent most recent effort I'll Take What I Want  then you'll know that it's definitely not undeserved. Similar to its predecessor, Go Steady  definitely has more of a political leaning to it than Buster Shuffle's earlier releases with the likes of Deadline  and former single New Badge For My Uniform  being impassioned protests against the tedium of nine-to-five minimum wage culture. However, the key is that they've continued their long standing tradition of packing these angry rants with supreme earworm tunes with the bouncy title track and The Hood  showing a definite ear for melody. There&#

  Veterans of the early '80s mod revival scene, while the Chords never quite got the chart success that the likes of the Jam and Secret Affair did but they've proved themselves to be among the most durable bands of the movement with frontman Chris Pope convening a new line-up under the Chords UK banner in recent years and this being their third album following on from 2018's Nowhere Land . It gets off to a strong start as well with the Ramones-esque former single Listen To The Radio  while Last Great Rock Star  and the clarion call of Hey Kids! Come The Revolution are reminiscent of the Alarm’s heart-on-sleeve honesty. One of the good things about Big City Dreams  is that this is a group capable of belying their years to throw enough tricks in to ensure that it never gets dull such as the loping T-Rex/Sweet style glam rock groove underpinning Keep Calm And Carry On  and A Billion Things To Do  or the ska beat of 21st Century Girl or Portobello Road  (which marries gentle ac

  "Here's to fallin' off the world’s dark side/Driftin' in alone on the morning tide/Riding on an all night train through the crystal caves/Where the moonlight shines the path for a better day"  - Soul Asylum  - Crashing Down Mention Soul Asylum to most British music fans who aren't "in the know" and their response will probably be to roll their eyes and remember that terrible mushy acoustic ballad  Runaway Train  song which gave the band a Top 10 hit over here in 1992 and which instantly condemned them to be written off as limp third division corporate Cobain wannabes. Of course though, that's far from the full story - if EVER there was a band whose hit sounded nothing like the majority of their catalogue prior to that point then it was Dave Pirner and co. Obviously if you remember the early instalments of Sounds From The Junkshop when I was reminiscing about the early '90s, you'll remember that I had precious little time for grunge - to

"So bury me now/Safely and sound/There's a place in the ground for the insecure"  - Jim's Super Stereoworld  - The Happiest Man Alive Those with long memories may recall that when we did our first ever Sounds From The Junkshop way back in August 2020, the band featured were your correspondent's teenage favourites Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and it's safe to say that although the band split in 1998, the story of my following Jim Bob and Fruitbat wasn't done with by a long shot. As the millennium drew to a close, both would resurface, Fruity in Abdoujaparov and Jim in Jim's Super Stereoworld with latter day Carter bassist and former S*M*A*S*H* man Salv also coming along for the ride. Jim's Super Stereoworld would see Jim Bob leaving the political slant of Carter behind for a more pop-oriented approach with a quirky sense of humour behind it and it worked pretty well. Unfortunately at this point, Carter were generally regarded as yesterday

I'd heard of Gaz Brookfield's name before happening upon this album but didn't really know much about the guy to be honest - this is another review on here that's come about thanks to Bandcamp recommending this album on the back of another one we reviewed and liked recently (the Star Botherers' one from last week if anyone's interested). Anyway, the back story here is that Brookfield is an established folk singer-songwriter from Bristol but over the events of 2020 put out the self-explanatory Lockdown  album which showed a much angrier, punkier and plugged-in side to his work and Idiomatic  is the follow-up which sees him building on this newly discovered side of his repertoire. Indeed, the tuneful pop-punk of opener Pantomime  reminds me a bit of one of Weezer's more melodic moments and is a strong first shot. Battle Cry  sounds like Frank Turner with an added mid-'80s influence (think the Psychedelic Furs or one of the Cure's poppier songs) and the

  We seem to have had a bit of an influx of folk-punk bands in these pages in recent weeks and Sheffield natives Shanghai Treason are another new name to add to that list. This is their second album and on the evidence of opener Emerald Causeway  they're definitely towards the punkier end of the list with the tempo being kept high and the guitars kicking on the chorus in the best Levellers style. The frenetic banjo-powered Gatling Gun  keeps the momentum rolling nicely and the likes of Freeman On The Road  and the wistful  Boatman  definitely sound like the sort of thing the Levs used to do so well back in the way (and to be fair have started doing well again on their most recent album) while Uphill Battle  and Truth Be Told  bristle with a defiant energy and Hero's Welcome  sees them drop the pace to a more countrified sound. They even have Dan Booth from fellow folk-punks Ferocious Dog guest on the ferocious Wildfire . The only slight drawback on this album is that the tinny

  "And you make another vow that you're never going back on your own again/And you find another way to replace them but replacing them is not the same..."  - Cuddly Toys  - It's A Shame A frequent curse of bands who appear in both Garbage Days Revisited and Sounds From The Junkshop is that of plain old bad timing and the Cuddly Toys are yet another prime example of this. Had they emerged a couple of years earlier than they did then they'd have been in prime position to catch a ride on Bowie 's coat-tails circa Station To Station . A couple of years later and they'd have had a ready made audience waiting for them in amongst the primordial soup of the Batcave club alongside bands like Alien Sex Fiend, Specimen and Flesh For Lulu from whence goth rock would spring in the early '80s. The reality? They emerged during the punk years and absolutely nobody knew what to make of them. They really were a band out of time. The group would start out as a straight-

"Here's a day lost for a while/We'll run towards the guns and go out in style"  - Easyworld  - Demons Of all those UK indie bands who looked likely to break through only to see the ground fall away beneath them once the NME started to lose their heads over the vapid likes of the Strokes, the failure of Easyworld to become the chart-conquering superstars they deserved to be is surely one of the most unjust. They were arguably the last band who I started following while they were on the Fierce Panda label (and as you'll know if you've been reading the SFTJ column for the last few months, there were a LOT of those) who I stuck with after they broke through and for five minutes they really did look like they were British indie's great white hopes. The group first came to my attention with their Fierce Panda single Hundredweight  and the attendant mini-album Better Ways To Self-Destruct  in early 2000. I saw them live a fair few times around this point as they

  Friends of Derby punk mainstays Dirt Box Disco, the obvious template for the Undead Conspiracy is the Misfits with their punk energy and song titles like House of the Dead  and I Wear Your Skin . With this genre undergoing something of a revival in recent years with the rise of bands like the Dead Beats, they've certainly timed their entrance on to the scene pretty well. The group are pretty tight musically and they tackle the three chord thrash punk style well with some impressively sharp guitar solos as well on tracks like Dance With The Devil . The only slight issue here is that the vocals seem to be a bit low in the mix meaning the singer often sounds like he's struggling to make himself heard above the backing tracks. But as we often say here, you're allowed the odd mistake on your debut and it's something for them to work on next time. In spite of the less than ideal mix, there's still plenty of good ideas and a good aggressive energy to this band and I'

  First album in four years from alt-rock veterans Superchunk following on from their ferocious What A Time To Be Alive  which was a scathing indictment of the Trump regime. It's safe to say that prior to rediscovering the band through that record, I was a bit out of the loop with them having not really listened to much of their stuff since their imperial phase around No Pocky For Kitty , Tossing Seeds  etc. So it's safe to say that Wild Loneliness  has come as a bit of a curveball as someone who remembers the group as aggressive proto-grunge growlers - this is certainly the sound of a much more melodic Superchunk with the jangly Teenage Fanclub style guitars and vocal harmonising on the choruses. Even more surprising is that they carry it off pretty well with the likes of Endless Summer  and City of the Dead  having a nice summery feel to them similar to the vibe of Cornershop's excellent England Is A Garden  album a couple of years back while This Night  with its soaring

  Hailing from Nottinghamshire, the Star Botherers are another folk-punk to go along with the likes of Ferocious Dog and Skinny Lister in the field with Tales Of Layton Rakes being their second album. They're certainly closer soundwise to Ferocious Dog with a down to earth working class take on the genre which provides a nice contrast to some of the more posh-boy bands who've muddied these waters in the last decade or so. There's a very angry political invective buried in these songs under a seemingly innocuous gentle folk-punk backing with the self-explanatory Spoons  and Blackpool  taking potshots at pub violence, Let It Stand  being a righteous polemic against Thatcherism and its legacy and Just Around The Corner  and Another Lidl Song  being laments about how easy it is to get caught in the poverty cycle when you least expect it. Elsewhere, 13 Years In Oregon  and A Sailor's Grave  are Ferocious Dog style tales of historical injustice. No Scarlet Rebels style fudgin

  As a rule, I try to avoid greatest hits releases on this 'ere webzine but Warner E Hodges, best known as guitarist for Nashville cowpunk legends Jason & The Scorchers, was nice enough to send us a copy of this in the run-up to his UK tour starting next week. I have to be honest, even though I'm a huge Scorchers fan (a Garbage Days Revisited feature on them may be coming soon on this website) and enjoyed his work with the Georgia Satellites’ Dan Baird in Homemade Sin, I've not listened to much of Warner's solo stuff so I figured this would be a good introduction prior to going to catch the Keighley leg of the tour next weekend. To tell the truth, the majority of the stuff on Boots Up!  essentially sounds like a rockier version of the Scorchers with straight-up rockers like Right Back Where I Started  and Where You Gone  rubbing shoulders with the odd unexpected number to vary things up like the fast-paced Back In Town  and Preachin' To The Choir ,   the lurchin

"Hey Mr Preacher, you're gonna die before you're heard!"  - The Little Roosters  - People Break Down We've dealt with some fairly obscure bands in the last year or so of Garbage Days Revisited but the Little Roosters must surely be one of the most unknown to date. Formed from the ashes of the first incarnation of '77 punks and oi godfathers Cock Sparrer by guitarist Garrie Lammin, bassist Steve Burgess and drummer Steve Bruce following Sparrer's initial break-up in 1978, they managed to sign to Polydor, got none other than Joe Strummer to produce their album only for it to not even see the light of day in their native UK. Although they're forever associated with Oi, the truth is that early Sparrer definitely had a bit of a glam-punk tint to their sound - if anything to these ears their early records sound more like a '77 version of Slade with the big boot-stomp drums and chantalong choruses. Not to mention their cover of the Stones ' We Love Yo

  Welcome back to the Singles Bar for March. Spring is almost here, the world at large seems to be waking up and the new releases are starting to become a bit more plentiful so why not pull up a chair and we'll see what's on the menu this month. And a good start to this month's selection with a welcome return for Leeds pop-punk veterans The Cyanide Pills   with The Kids Can't Be Trusted With Rock 'n' Roll  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗), a great singalong slice of Ramones indebted pop-punk taking a humourous swipe at "punk rock police" types. Cracker of a B-side as well in the frenetic Do You Wanna Know? Not sure if this is a standalone release or an album taster but if the latter then consider my interest most definitely piqued. Arriving in the same package from Damaged Goods records is the new effort from the Courettes . As you'll probably know if you read our review of their Back In Mono  album last year, while most of the world was losing its head over this band

  "Cartoon monkeys got ya hard, it must've been the hair/And though Jive Bunny stole your creative fire, you really didn't care"  - McLusky  - Dethink To Survive McLusky...jeez, where do you start? For five glorious minutes, they were pretty much the best band in Britain only for things to spontaneously combust and them to vanish just as soon as they'd arrived. Having formed in South Wales in the mid-'90s, the group spent half a decade slogging away on the toilet circuit before To Hell With Good Intentions , the lead-off single from their second album, unexpectedly landed them centre stage after picking up plaudits in pretty much every corner of the music press. If you've not heard McLusky before then I really dunno how to describe their sound to you. Their plaudits heralded them as the sound of Chris Morris/Charlie Brooker style gonzo writing applied to post-hardcore while one especially harsh review likened them to Timmy from South Park  fronting the Pix

  Hailing from Hull, Filthy Filthy have an impressive list of bands supported on their resume including the UK Subs, Spizzenergi and Duncan Reid & The Big Heads. And on listening to Getting Away With It, their position on these bills certainly isn't any fluke. Similar to Leeds' own Kingcrows, the group peddle an enjoyably grubby take on the classic Ramones style pop-punk format with the breakneck drums, thrashalong guitars and cocksure vocals making for an enjoyable mix on the title track, Weekend and the humourous ode to brewers’ droop that is  Too Far Gone . It's actually reminiscent of some of the Soho glam bands of the mid-'80s like Marionette and the Soho Roses as well which is no bad thing. There's a bit of variety here as well - My Baby's Got The Shakes goes into Stray Cats style rockabilly and Throw Away Lover  and Listen To The Radio both up the tempo to good effect. They don't quite hit the target every time - some of the lesser songs like  Me

  Any band that touts itself as the sound of the (ugh) New Wave of Classic Rock getting political is at least an intriguing prospect on the surface and so I approached this second album from Llanelli rockers Scarlet Rebels with a bit of interest. I mean, it can't be any worse than some of the stinkers that this genre's thrown up in the last few years, surely? The opening track here I'm Alive  reminds me a bit of a three way collision between the Struts, the Black Crowes and Reef with its twisting Skynyrd style riff. It's alright but it doesn't really stand out from the crowd. And unfortunately it's kind of symptomatic of the rest of this album - there's plenty of good musicianship and hard graft in there but the tunes here just don't have the hooks to really pull you in. Not to mention that tracks like the ballad-by-numbers Leave The Light On  (which sounds like a second division Quireboys more than anything) really do lay on the clichés like nobody'