Read The Nothings - A Lot To Learn review
I finally got this one, not from Galaxy records but from Phil Holmes (gtr/voc) himself. Don't trust your label.
I liked the last CD from The Nothings (A Lot To Learn) and this is pretty close to that, even though there's a near-20 year gap between the two recordings. The old one was produced by Steve Jones, this has him guest-guitaring on 6 of the 11 songs. That means he does most of the solos on this record and some of them are pretty good, some are too much stadium AOR for my taste. Just like the other great guitarist of the 70's (I'm talking 'bout Angus Young here, you ignorant fuck) Steve sometimes forgets what made him great. Practise doesn't always make perfect. I liked what he did with the old songs during the 1996 Filthy Lucre Tour and some of the stuff on this one is good too. The whole thing is a lot better than the awful Neurotic Outsiders album, that's for sure. Ok, enough about Steve.
Compared to A Lot To Learn this is a little less punk rock and a bit more professional (no, not the band) sounding. The songs are still pretty basic and simple - which is a good thing - but there's no Nineteen Thirty Nine on this one. When I reviewed their last CD I said there should be a bit more Punk Rock in the vocals, well, Phil went the other way. On most of the new songs he's dangerously close to 'proper singing'. Talk Behind Your Back and Born Alive Dead are the best ones here. 11 songs in 45 minutes. Sort of New Wave meets Hard Rock with lots of guitars. This would probably have been better if they'd spent less time in the studio. The Nothings need a dirty raw sound quality, this is too clean. They should drink some beer and record it live with a portable 4-track in the garage. They'd get a killer.
2 bands from Skelleftea, northern Sweden, doing 2 songs each. Suburban Brats first song hasn't got a title on the insert - there's no sleeve just 2 inserts - but it's all ''We're The Brat Boys! We're The Brat Boys'' so let's call it that. It's pretty good standard stuff, somewhere between street punk and rock'n'roll just like the band - they're a skin, a punk and a rocker (Skelleftea is a small town). The vocals on the second song, Working Class Denial, has a strange unpleasant urgency and desperation to it that didn't fit the lyrics but made the song a lot better. I'm not sure it's what they were aiming for but it's got that Jello-Biafra-mocking-70's-rock sound. If they really were trying for some Robert Plant crooning they failed, but I don't wanna hear about that so don't tell me.
The Doits' Sucker For Youre Lovin (sic) and Come Get Some are good Electric Frankenstein type rock'n'roll with two guitars, one playing simple solos all over the songs giving it that rock'n'roll feel we all like. Pawn shop Gibson, cigarette in mouth, you know what I mean. The kinda stuff that's great fun to play, and that's what it's all about, ain't it?
All and all a pretty good EP that deserves a better packaging.
E-mail the Doits for more info.
