Was I a little drunk when I decided to blow my minuscule income on a set of records from Specialist Subject? Probably. Had I recently decided to cut back on buying records so I could instead buy boring shit, like food? Also affirmative. But here we are – a few days after my drunk-shopping spree a massive cardboard mailer arrived in the post, and I am the proud – proud I say! – owner of a bunch of albums by a bunch of bands I’d never heard of before.
Ok, that’s not strictly true. The six records that make up the labels 2023 output does seem to include the latest by Jeff Rosenstock, who I’ve heard before and honestly, never really got. Thankfully Jeff’s contribution marks the low point of an otherwise largely remarkable set of albums, a diverse palette of releases that extends well beyond the ‘awkward pop- punk’ sound I had been anticipating.
There’s something very, very English about most of the bands here, an underlying recourse to the specific context of our weathered islands folk history and, in particular, the sort of punk-adjacent records that seemed to be everywhere in the early 90’s and then immediately disappeared. It’s worth being careful when you start talking about folk and punk in the same sentence, terms that have taken on a huge Americanisation in recent years – a sea of endless ‘acoustic punk’ bands that all sound a bit like Bruce Springsteen, or borrow from certain popular strands of Bluegrass, somewhat masking the fact that there is a thriving and markedly different folk tradition in Britain. Whilst the likes of Frank Turner lean into this US-centric sound, I tend to find it mostly a little boring, a rather artificial take on ‘music of the people’. In contrast, I like my folk to sound like it’s lost in the deep end of a 4-day festival in rural Somerset, or being played by the house-band of an anarchist bookshop-cum-squat. I was never a huge fan of the Levellers, but always appreciated their skill in sounding exactly like a houseboat – and whilst nothing on Specialist Subject sounds particularly like the Levellers, in houseboats they abound.
‘Witching Waves’ have obviously mastered a good hook, but frame them in a rather downbeat, low-key way: opener ‘The Valley’ offers peppy riffs replete with (I don’t know, but let’s say) marimbas that fire over ever solid, never showy drums. The album is steeped in catchy, softly-sung vocals, a gift for melody and repetition that has you singing along despite their general avoidance of anything too tropeish. Open-ended, vaguely ambivalent phrases, like “it’s not a choice you make” are cast against guitar parts that should, in another context, be performed on a weirdly spiked Jackson whilst a leathered foot taps fiercely on a nine-foot high monitor. But even these eccentricities are played down, lost in the wash, the individual elements succumbing to the bands general sense of lethargy, a beautiful articulation of the weary and downtrodden. The scraps of sentences that escape the din seem cyclical, as if only ever describing itself. “Dreams so big they float into the air”. “Open a hole and let it go”.
I’m not sure there’s really a standout track – indeed, a standout track might undermine their charm: it’s like staring at a really good painting of mud, painted in mud, a swirl of abstract colours that neatly pivots between introspection and urgency, sort of like if Richard Long was a punk band, all texture and tone over structure or form.
You know who does have a standout track? Toodles and the Hectic Pity fucking do. I think that’s probably a terrible band name but I don’t even care at this point, such is the sheer joy of listening to “Religious Experience on the Bristol-Bath Railway Path”, a song that meanders steadily without significant progress, ending, gloriously, where it began. near-spoken, gentle words float above the gentle strum of guitars, a rolling side-snare, lethargy-plus groove enacted on the drum kit beneath. And that chorus, Jesus. “I am a roving camera, following the branches that reach to the sky like they are summoning the afterlife”, declared over a near trad- folk lift, a wandering cry that sheds even the hint of arrogance or pretension.
Not one to drop the baton, Toodles exceptionally solid album offers not one veritable banger, but two: enter “Emotionally Unclean”, which borrows from the lyric sheet of shit emo and miraculously comes away unscathed, with Toodles (is the singer called Toodles? I hope so. let’s call them Toodles regardless) emphatically voicing a desire for “someone to admit that they love me, so I can turn around and say I’m sorry, I am still working on me”. Which sounds fucking cringe but works so perfectly as to foster all of the goodwill in the world, the sort of lyric that seems to actually cause a visceral twinge in your chest.
If capitalism has taught us anything it’s that we can’t all be winners, not everybody gets a prize, and Big Mess go home empty handed. Ok, maybe not empty-handed. Maybe they get a consolation, a signed photo of Pat Sharp, but certainly not a XL hypercolour t-shirt that reads ‘I’M AWESOME!’.
In all fairness, they’re pretty competent, sounding an awful lot like Gas Huffer, or Electric Frankenstein, or John Cougar Concentration Camp, or one of a thousand bands you can’t remember the name of on a Burning Heart compilation CD. They evidently don’t take themselves very seriously, and write songs with names like ‘Shit on my shoe’ and ‘Do lang do lang’. They also get bonus points for including a Christmas song, despite it being legally mandated that Christmas songs have to go on their own, completely separate seasonal album, but no, here’s one lodged bang in the middle of an oi-lite offering otherwise void of festive joy. Overall it’s fine, and in all probability it will get played more often than I’d like to admit because it’s so damn inoffensive.
You know what’s not inoffensive? Shit Present. They’ve got a literal swear-word in their name. It’s edgy. I’m officially offended. what’s worse, they lean so far into a very particular brand of cheesy pop-punk that it’s borderline unlistenable if your not already firmly signed up to that sort of thing – indeed, after a couple of listens I was ready to write ‘What Still Gets Me’ off, to consign it to the already overburdened charity shop bin that blocks my front door. And yet, here I am, analogical cap in hand, begging the captains of good ship Shit Present for forgiveness. because TUNES. Beneath the initially off-putting veneer, the album is filled with literal bangers. Super bangers. The sort of bangers that orbit the sun, the kind astrologists find haunting the galaxy through telescopes.
Let’s start with the obvious: if ‘unravelling’ had been released during the heyday of MTV alt- rock music videos, Shit Present would be the biggest band on the planet. At least as big as Kittie were. It’s a stonking song, combining melodramatic, emo-tinged vocals with some perfect staccato accompaniment, as designed by committee for the worlds most enthusiastic singalong. ‘Voice in my head’ employs a well-trodden ‘maybe I’m insane?’ narrative but nails it, and if it’s a little on the nose, it’s only in the manner of an obnoxious but ultimately impressive nose-ring. Above all this ridiculously peppy greatness, however, lies the albums true crown, ‘Way I’d Like’. Downplaying the pop-punk in favour of some good old fashioned indie-pop, the track belts out a woozy, slightly naughty chorus with such effortlessness as to implore an unwilling ‘woo-hoo-hoo’ from even the most sullen listener.
In the age old tradition of leaving the best till last, we finish with the unadulterated glory of Garden Centre. A band with a name so mediocre it’s literally impossible to google, GC operate in a vague prog-folk domain, twinkly guitars framed by incongruous synths and sudden, unbecoming changes of time signature. I don’t know if someone in the band plays a banjo, or an autoharp, but it’s defiantly the sort of music where someone could get away with it without coming across like a godawful prick. Each track is crafted, nay, refined with such rigour as to elevate often relatively straightforward riffs into the podium of the almighty, a whimsical, fairyesque skip through a sublime and foreign field.
The ambitious, mature, and frankly beautiful music is cast against an utterly unique singer, employing a nasal monotony and giddy melodicism to wonderful effect. As someone who puts a lot of stock in the quality of lyrics, I spend my life being constantly disappointed by the lack of effort most artists put into their literary prowess. In contrast, GC offer both smart, abstract lyrics and the aforementioned melodicism to conjure utterly distinct imagery. Most bands seems to think that poetry is about fancy words and feelings, but it’s not, and ‘Tannoy’ proves it. ‘I am a train guard working Southwestern, I don’t like my job but I have my fun’ will speak to the soul of anyone who has ever a) caught a train or b) had a job, fulfilling its initial dull promise with ‘I like to make a joke out of my boredom on the Tannoy’. Poet laureates struggle to say so much with so little. and it doesn’t stop. ‘Perfect Stranger’ offers the doozy ‘doing perfect backflips on your trampoline, patch of dead grass where it used to be’; and the obvious single ‘Chicken’ describes our hero’s hand that ‘automatically raises up in a salute at an unknown number of magpies roosting in a bush, thieving little birds’. my personal fav, however, has to be ‘Searching for a Streams’ final verse, a downtrodden lilt describing mediocrity with unparalleled beauty: ‘we’ll set off on a long earned holiday, down the canal on a boat full of wine, dressed like children playing video games, in the space in between the sofa and the TV set”.
Wait. We didn’t do Jeff. Sorry Jeff. Maybe not that sorry. I reckon Jeff is pretty popular – I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a photo of him sitting on a mountain and wearing a hat, the sort of thing only popular people do. Jeff came on splatter vinyl. No one else came on splatter vinyl. And I gave Jeff a go. I really did. I’ve stuck on Jeff’s splatter a hundred times, hoping to glean a glimpse of the brilliance that other people seem to experience. But I’m sorry, Jeff. I don’t get it. A hundred listens and I’m upgrading you to ‘quite fun’, but it isn’t enough. Music’s subjective, hey. You probably sell more records than all the other bands combined but, Jeff, it’s not for me. I’m sure you’re still an awesome human. We can do tea sometime.
Check out more from the label: https://specialistsubjectrecords.co.uk
Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully
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