Labels: Crackle
Review by: MH
Another discography CD. Who doesn’t love a discography CD? Probably depends on whether you like the band or not. This time it’s from Crackle Records and the mighty Chopper who split up back in 1998. Good job they were good as there are 42 tracks here taken from their one album, various 7inches and other tracks from splits and compilations as well as some unreleased stuff. They’re all in the right order of when they were recorded too. Chopper were another of the UK’s finer pop punk bands and peers of the likes of Snuff, Broccoli and Leatherface. This is another CD from the batch that never made it to my house. The postman remains the number one suspect as per my Hooton 3 Car review and seeing as though he is clearly a Hooton 3 Car fan it’s not beyond the realms of reality that he nicked the Chopper CD too. They played fairly frenetic and melodic pop punk tunes and were named after a mighty fine bike or perhaps after Ron Harris…or that Australian gangster…or a helicopter. The vocals are fairly strained and the songs fly by at a rate of knots. Tracks like “One More Day” and “Blandford” still sound great and I’d point to them as a starting point for anyone new to the band. Having said that they were a pretty consistent band who nailed their sound so it’s pretty much all good stuff if a little samey at times but there are admittedly a LOT of songs on here. I’ve just noticed that on “Twister” they used the same Michael Caine sample from the film “Alfie” as Carter USM used on “Falling On a Bruise”. Isn’t that a coincidence?