Zounds – Redemption of Zounds – CD (2011)

Labels: Overground
Review by: Joe Caithness

So if you’ve never heard Zounds you haven’t heard possibly the great UK punk 7″ EP ever 
written, their début Crass Records release “Can’t Cheat Karma” which is a perfect piece of 
proto-indie pop anarcho-punk music. They have reformed, in some form, and this is what they 
want to show us about where they are at.


First impressions of this album are kinda weak, just because they have some really poor 
quality artwork here, pictures of chav girls in front on Stonehenge that look like they are 
put together by an A Level graphic design student, really guys?



First track kicks in, first thing I spot is that the production is really brittle and thin, 
which contrasts their early records in a rather unpleasant way. The cymbals sound like they 
are made out of glass and the whole thing sounds quite unfriendly on the ear.



Zounds were never a band to beat around the bush lyrically, their first EPs had some real 
truth bombs inside the melodic jangling, but four tracks in my cringe-ometer has jumped up 
a few times. I guess they are trying to make their 80s protest style fit the modern times, 
obviously they mention bankers, wars, all that good stuff, but I don’t get the feeling of 
fist pumping rage their early 80s output.



A few cowbells, whistling solos, hand claps and bad harmonies later, I have pretty much 
given up on this band for a while.



Don’t get me wrong, it’s still Zounds, kinda, and his vocals are still bang on, but this is 
just an album that I didn’t need to hear. Sometimes it sounds like old Zounds, but it 
sounds like it’s played by some old tired men who can’t let it go. This will end up in the 
charity shop, but their 7″s will stay in my record box for as long as I can keep em.