Loose Articles // Scream if You Wanna Go Faster // Out Friday 26th July 2024
Manchester punks Loose Articles have been bubbling under the surface for some time, and they’re breaking through in serious style with their frantic, important debut.
Since the days of their first EP, 2019’s Orchid Lounge, Loose Articles have been gigging practically every single weekend, honing their craft and developing their sound. Those gigs haven’t been insignificant either, they’ve taken on sweaty shows in the corner room of Mancunian boozers all the way up to huge support slots with Gang of Four, and most recently Foo Fighters’ huge show at Manchester’s Old Trafford cricket ground.
This relentless live work has not gone unnoticed, and a lineup change (Louise Rivett taking on keys and synth duties, and Northern Chorus Podcast guest Abbi Phillips of She Drew The Gun and PINS was recruited on the drums) has seen them seriously mature and grow into their sound. The record itself is a prime mix of modern punk, comprised of angular and minimalist Fall-esque parts, Gang of Four style call and response backing vocals, and some brilliantly weird synthy bits. The band’s attitude is relentless, and they take aim at bad bosses, industry misogyny and plenty more, with the forked tongue of Natalie Wardle taking the aforementioned villains to the cleaners as she sees fit.
The record itself grooves and moves splendidly. The in-your-face straight-up punk of ‘Mr Manager’ and ‘Are You A Welder’ is brilliantly complemented with ‘Want’, a track where guitarist Erin Caine takes lead vocal duties, and the grungy, minimalist bassline snakes along to hip-moving effect. Throughout Scream if You Wanna Go Faster the band exhibit and showcase their skills with a deft touch: they can knock your socks off with visceral punk tunes, but they do the softer stuff just as well.
‘Unpaid Intern’ is a moshpit-inspiring number, less than three minutes long and packed with dry wit and barbs at the capitalist mentality we all struggle through. ‘I’ve Nearly Made It’ is a return to the snakehips basslines, inter-spliced with fantastic offbeat drumwork from Phillips. The cut has the distinct feel of the debut Yard Act record, The Overload, and Wardle shows off her vocal delivery skills with aplomb. Throughout, but on this number especially, she has a knack for delivering more words than should be possible in the verses: she really packs her lines in at times, which gives the whole thing the sensation that it might just fall apart at any moment. Scratch under the surface of these tunes though, and it becomes evident that every angular bassline, ominous synth wobble or offbeat snare is in perfect place.
Lead single ‘I’d Rather Have A Beer’, ‘Pinball John’ and ‘It’s Art’ form a triple play at the very spine of this record, and the three tunes are no-holds-barred belters. The latter of the three, ‘It’s Art’ is the real standout on this album: their rage comes to the very forefront here, like it’s been bubbling under the surface for the whole album up to this point. “It’s not my fella’s guitar, it’s MY fucking guitar!” is the repeated refrain, as the basslines and drums heave with a muscular, post-punk feeling. They’re able to flash straight back to the minimalist punk thing they do mid-song, before building right back up again to a monumental finish on this thing.
The closer, ‘Guitars, Cars, Knickers and Bras’ has a melancholy moodiness to it that could have been pulled straight from Unknown Pleasures, but once more it sees Loose Articles call out the crisis of misogyny that runs deep in every facet of the music industry. This is less a rallying war cry, and more a furiously measured critique of an entire industry.
As a debut record, this album is simply brilliant. Everything that modern punk music should be exists within the four walls of this record: it’s angry, funny, acute in eloquent criticism and rocks hard when it wants to.
9/10
Words: Charlie Brock
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