Labels: Drunken Sailor
Review by: MH
I’m not familiar with The Magnificent but I do know a bit about Jimmy Islip who sings and plays bass. He’s the drummer from That Fucking Tank and Milloy and does a pretty good job as a singer/songwriter on his acoustic stuff. This sounds nothing like That Fucking Tank and falls somewhere in between Milloy and his solo stuff. The guitarist does vocals too and the first song on this 7inch is called “1981”. It’s a straight-up Clash-style punk rock song full of energy and goes through some of the events that took place in 1981 – Charles got married to Diana, Rupert Murdoch bought some newspapers and Ronald Reagan was sworn in. I’m not sure why they chose to write a song about this year in particular as the hook of the songs says “Not much happened in 1981/Not much happened at all”. However, it’s a catchy tune and there are certainly not enough songs mentioning Huddersfield these days. The B side is much closer to Jimmy’s solo stuff – an acoustic track with a big, singalong chorus called “Six Beers (Slight Return)”. It’s actually a stripped down, acoustic version of a track from their first album and starts off with some chatter from someone who has puked all over the studio equipment. There are no actual sound effects of puking though. This is a good 7inch and I’m keen to hear their albums.