Third LP but the first I’ve heard by Stiff Richards, and it’s honestly just so great I barely know what to say. On the face of it the sound is knuckleheaded and simple: clenched, sweaty, just-kicked-out-the-pub punk that recalls Eddy Current Suppression Ring at their yobbiest as well as earlier forebears like The Saints and Radio Birdman. Thing is, though, being able to write songs this catchy, tense and urgent is anything but simple, relying on a mix of lizard brain intuition and feral cunning as much as the ability to string three chords together in an incrementally different way to everybody else rushing to catch the same bolt of lightning in a bottle. It’s pissed off, it’s desperate, it’s sad and it’s joyous, and every song here is like a searing electric jolt to the brain. I love it to absolute bits.
