Labels: Boss Tuneage – Rookie
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Holy crap, Southport. The fact that over there on the right you can see a review of Southport from 2000, tells you all you need to know. Southport? Are still a band? Ridiculous! But thank fuck they are. I saw them live earlier this year and had a cracking evening out, and now I have 13 new songs (hmm, possibly 3 too many for a band with a slightly samey sound), to tide me through the next 9 years until they complete the difficult third album.
Southport positively revel in the mid to late 90s UK melodic punk sound popularised by Leatherface, Hooton, Blocko, Snuff and all the other bands that even though you are too cool to still admit to liking, you occasionally dig their records out when a bit drunk and wistful for a simpler time. It is a quintessentially British sound, there are no bands in any other part of the world that make this kind of music in quite this way. It’s all about the simmering energy and sweet melody, songs of a familiar mid-pace, not too slow and not too fast, a non-threatening middle aged pace of a bunch of guys who have great ears for melody, and piece it all together to make crunchy music that simply works and brings a smile to the face. Songs like “White Lightning” are effortlessly spot on, so much drive and melodic genius, it makes you wonder why it took the bastards nine years to come up with this much new material. Then again, you get the rather dreadful “Falling Man”, which I can’t describe, it has organ on it, for some reason it is making me think of Sting. I am all for trying something new, but this attempt fails miserably.
“Armchair Supporters” is blue collar UK melodic punk for slightly paunchy 30 somethings who just want to go to a gig on their own, stand a safe distance from the stage with a beer and tap their foot and nod their head for 30 minutes. Southport are a bloody good band, and it warms my heart to hear this album. You already know if you are going to buy this or not I expect, but I hope that this album is capable of ushering in the next generation of soon to be slightly paunchy 30 somethings into UK melodic punk bands…