Drunk Souls - Revolution

One man to another says, "My wife went to the West Indies". The other asks, "Jamaica?" The reply is "No, she went of her own accord". Apologies for the lame joke, but it seemed appropriate to start a review for a reggae type band. However France where the Drunk Souls hail from is far from the first country that comes to mind when when considering reggae but to be fair the band cover more musical terrain than just music aimed at dreadlocked spliff smokers.

The album kicks off with the funky "Drifter's song" which gives no indication of what the listener is in for. The second song, "Human Race" is early 80's bouncy ska and is the strongest song on the album so it's no surprise the band's video has received a large number of views although the inclusion in a documentary about a French highline tightrope walking, base-jumping, and mountaineering group definitely helped. The video is below and well worth a squiz.

If Sting ever jammed with The Specials, they'd come up with a song similar to "Africa" which starts out like adult jazz mixed with pop but then the bouncy ska sound skanks over. "L'amour Dieteque" doesn't really fit in the album due to its slow sombreness changing the mood. The tight bouncy "Sullivan Story" is reminiscent of The English Beat. "Happy Death Day" slows the mood again and has Peter Gabriel written all over it.

In this day and age, it's refreshing whenever a band has their own website even if it does just link to the present standards of facebook etc. It's not difficult to imagine "Revolution" being played during summer when everyone around is wearing and barbecues are blazing and beers are freely flowing and it's also easy imagine these guys playing outdoors on a bill with Fat Freddy's Drop as the audience burn in the sun.

3/5

Video for "Human Race"





Drunk Souls website



Drunk Souls on facebook




Small Takeover on facebook

Offbeats, Vicious Rumour, Skaface Claw, Lead Pipe Larry at Valve November 30

This show was advertised as being Wellington Ska band, The Offbeats Christmas party. I'm not a huge fan of modern ska and don't really like The Offbeats. I attended this because I wanted to see Vicious Rumour and Skaface Claw again. I purposely arrived sometime after 10:30 thinking I'd at least miss the first band since there were really only two bands of any interest to me. When I arrived the first band, Lead Pipe Larry and The Dangermen were playing No Doubt's spiderwebs. They were nothing special really.





Skaface Claw have now changed their name to Otis Claw but the ska/punk/surf crossover three piece is still the same great band. They seem to have got even better than last time saw them. The ska audience seemed more appreciative than the confused pop punk audience did the previous time I saw them despite the first songs seeming more rock/cow punk. They played a few new songs plus called one called Dennis From Accounts that vocalist, Varnya, apologised for due to it being the first time they'd played it. He really didn't need to apologize as it sounded great. Otis Claw still sound mostly like Man or Astro-Man crossed with Operation Ivy and maybe Motorhead.
Definitely a band worth checking out both live and recorded.





Above pics: Otis Claw


The Offbeats played next. They weren't really my thing but lots of people seemed to enjoy them more than I did. I found the length of their set hard to take and went across to the fish and chip shop across the road to buy a bacon and egg toasted sandwich after they'd already played for what seemed like an hour. When I got back they were still playing. This show had been promoted as The Offbeats Christmas party so I'd assumed they'd play last and I'd just go home after seeing the two bands I wanted to see. I think they many played covers. The only one I could place was Rancid's 'Timebomb' which was also sung by a member of Vicious Rumour. Highlight of their set was my bacon and egg toastie.



Above pic: The Offbeats

Napier band punk band Vicious Rumour played next. They played what I thought was a lengthy set. Even playing the same cover twice. They seemed to be having fun. It has to be said that now the frontman's huge mohawk has disappeared. At least two guys in this band look like they've watched Trainspotting too many times. They seemed to play a lot of covers but I dunno really as I didn't recognize too many of their songs. They covered Lars and The Bastards playing Billy Bragg and passed it off as a Billy Bragg song. Weird. Left straight after the bands finished because I was incredibly tired.

Audience band T-shirts read like a list of who's toured New Zealand lately. A lot of Bad Religion and Motorhead shirts.



Above pic: Vicious Rumour