CONDEMNED 84 - "THE REAL Oi!"
("Haunted Town Records"; 7''Single EP):
Here it is, a new 7'' of no one else than the battle-scarred UK Brickwall Oi! giants CONDENED 84, and it's also meant to be the 'preview-release' for the next upcoming new full length album that shall be titled "IN FROM THE DARKNESS" and is about to be released soon (?) this year. Released this 7'' is by the great Chicago based American Oi!/Streetpunk/Punkrock label "HAUNTED TOWN RECORDS" (don't ask me if the album will also be released via the guys of "HAUNTED TOWN RECORDS", I have no clue), now brandnew in 2011. Very nice artwork, traditional cover motif and all that stuff by the band and the classic high quality standard of "HAUNED TOWN RECORDS" releases. We do get three tracks at all, two new ones in 'alternative' demo versions and this tracks are "I JUST WANNA BE FAMOUS" and "THE SOUND OF Oi!" (in that version they won't be to find on the coming album), as well as the title track of their last full length album "NO ONE LIKES US... WE DON'T CARE", one of the best and most impressive Hooligan (and Skinhead) anthems that I've ever listened to (and I've listened to hell a lot of songs like this), and this song is played in a live version and this truly damn cool and fuckin' good. Musically the two new songs are what you expect and want to get from CONDEMNED 84, hard and heavy, pretty brutal and angry stomping Brickwall Oi! the traitional U.K. way brewed. Dominated by hard and sawing guitar work and the pissed off and hard'n'angry vocals, while the bass and the drums are backing it all up with a lot of power and force. The guys know how to play and what to do and to write songs they know also. But somehow 'loosen'n'freshen up' they could do it quite a bit, especially in the case of "I JUST WANNA BE FAMOUS" that sounds (especially the arrangements of the verses) exactly like "NO IDENTITY" from their last full length album and also the refrain part isn't really that grapping, and all in all it's just done too 'stoic' after all. Lyrically you get exactly what ya already now may expect, a song about all the fake ass plastic Superstars out there, at least more or less something like this. To be honest this song fails nearly totally to convince me, it's too much "heard-for-a-thousand-times" stuff, only the guitar lead work owns some good potenial but even that's not worked out enough. Okay, after this dissapointment the next new song is coming, "THE SOUND OF Oi!", and this is really a strong smasher, finally again, great, great stuff. Larger-than-life Sing-A-Long Refrain, forceful and very fresh and 'lively-alive', great guitar lead and solo work, punishing and forward pushing rhythm work by the bass and the drums, and very cool angry and snotty lead vocals. Thumbs up!!! Really a great track!!! Lyrically it's your typical Oi! battle anthem, and done pretty cool. Last one up the live version of the title track of their last full length album, "NO ONE LIKES US... WE DON'T CARE". I think I don't need to say that much more about it anhow anyway here and now, it's a good record and this one is a great anthem of a song and really cool are the 'modifications' that they've done here compared with the studio recording album version (listen to the guitar work) and also I notice a strong early SKREWDRIVER mark here when it comes to the forceful and strong foward rockin' guitar playing, hm, that's something that I somehow missed all the time listening to their studio version of this song, hm, or maybe I just can't remember it currently after I haven't listened to it for quite a while now. Hm, who knows?!? Btw, the live version of this song was recorded live on stage in Gemany in 2010. Anyhow, not as overwhelming as it may could have been, but still a really good release of a legendary band that owns the potential to make us curious about the upcoming new full length album. I think about the lyrics I've told you already all what there's to be told, and I also said some words about the nice artwork, to the music as well anyhow, hm, so there's just the production sound left to say something about and/or to, hm, and what shall I say, it sounds all pretty dirty and noisy, heavy and it knocks pretty hard, so thumbs up for that. Okay, you may should give it a try, because it won't be a mistake at all. Ah, before I forget it (again), this one here is 'once-in-a-lifetime-issue' because it will respectively is now released solely and solely to not more than 1.500 copies worldwide, and there are also some different colors to be bought by you out there, but I'm glad mine is black, haha;-). (8 of 10 points)
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