The Restarts- Outsider LP review

The Restarts- Outsider LP review


The London punk trio The Restarts can’t really be labeled beyond punk rock; they play just about every sub-genre within it: Ska punk, street punk, anarcho punk, UK 82, new(er) hardcore, ’77 punk, and so on. ‘Outsider’ is another release by the British punk trio, pounding out eleven songs in thirty-two minutes. Did the band expand enough to cover some new ground and make some new fans, or at least enough to cover some old ground and keep all of their current fans interested? Absofuckinglutely. The pro-individual, anti-authoritarian message is proudly communicated through a well-written and instrumentally proficient effort by these British punk vets.

Although bassist Kieran takes on the majority of the singing, there are plenty of contributions from the guitarist Robin and the drummer, whose name escapes me. There are crust-influenced alternating vocals, street punk-influenced gang vocals, on top of the regular singing, which is the most unquestionably livid, pissed-off, jagged-toothed vocalizations I’ve heard from a band in the last decade (meaning, a band’s recorded output from 2001 to 2011, not my personal punk experiences from 2001 to 2011). With the catchy hooks in the title track ‘Outsider’ and ‘Intelligent Design’, it’s a wonder these songs don’t get on the American or British commercial radio. But music encouraging activity, anything deviating from keeping listeners fat, happy and stupid is likely filtered and booted from Clear Channel’s playlist, with a few subsidies floated the way of the censoring radio stations. No no, there’s nothing wrong with capitalism at all, just move along, buy your useless shit, recite the pledge of allegiance, and don’t stop to think twice, it’s alright; you wouldn’t want people to think you were a seditious Pinko traitor, would you?

My conspiracy theories aside, this is a great album, from its message to its instrumentation to the vocals to the sheer enjoyability of the songs. We’ve got to step it up on our side of the pond, friends and like-minded colleagues.

-Aunty Social