Ditches LP + The Mark Vodka Group LP OUT NOW

[Drunken Sailor Records]

Mark Vodka Group - ST LP

Debut LP from The Mark Vodka Group, Nova Scotia delivers again. FFO Coneheads, DLIMC, Buzzcocks and sunshine in the city.

More effortlessly catchy brilliance from Nova Scotia, Canada, that your ears, speakers and shelves simply cannot live without. You want a quality guarantee? Well, howsabout if I told you that The Mark Vodka Group includes members of the Booji Boys? Their 2019 opus ‘Tube Reducer’ should still be rattling the walls of your house and making your neighbours question the wisdom of moving next door to one of those ‘punk rockers’ the newspapers warned them about.

This is a different prospect to the Boojis, of course. While that group buries deceptively tasteful hooks in clouds of ear-lacerating distortion, The Mark Vodka Group opt for a more immediately accessible level of audibility, while still keeping things firmly in the box marked ‘lo-fi’. They sound like a bare-bones Descendants at their most irritably bratty, stealing the Oblivians’ homework and doodling stupid faces all over the most insightful parts. Or maybe the other way around. Point is, they do smart and stoopid simultaneously and they’ll make you wanna dive onto a dancefloor to revel in both sides.

As they’re not ashamed to tell you, however, the band have been around this music long enough to grow pissed off with… well, what have you got? Scenester elitism (‘Big Time Rocker’), the sudden trendiness of punk among previously sceptical normies (‘Everybody’s Punk Now’, which also boasts a killer Buzzcocks homage at its peak) and everyone dumb enough to cross them. Truth be told, punk rock doesn’t come out of these lyrical screes too well, but the Mark Vodka Group are too in love with the stuff to truly let go. Besides, as ‘Mark’s Blues’ laments at the album’s close, even when the rest gets you down, there’s always booze to keep us going: “The drinking hasn’t let me down yet.” Hey, Mark Vodka ain’t just a clever name. This is a damn fine record, though.
Will Fitzpatrick.
First 100 on Gold Vinyl
 
Listen HERE
https://drunkensailorrecords.bandcamp.com/album/st-lp-12
Buy HERE
http://www.drunkensailorrecords.co.uk/products/663058-the-mark-vodka-group-st-lp-drunken-sailor-records-drunkensailor-122

Ditches - ST LP

 

Meet Ditches, from Stockholm coming straight out the gutter and speeding into the part of your brain where all the catchiest melodies lurk for the rest of time. This is their debut LP, a frantic collision of powerpop, garage rock and the most addictive of yer favourite punk classics. Think the snot of the Adolescents with JJ O’Neill’s natural way around a melody, or simply recall Jeff Burke of The Marked Men/Radioactivity’s knack for invoking the tartrazine high and the sugar crash at exactly the same time. All these things can be found here, and plenty more besides.

Burke actually shows up on production duties, lending backing vocals where necessary, although while it’s evident that Ditches’ approach shares a certain something with his outfits, they also very clearly sculpt their own universe.
Songs like Stitch Me Up owe as much to high speed pub rockers like The Boys as to the Denton, Texas sound, while there’s a gentle nod to the endlessly memorable hooks of Pete Shelley in their plaintive melodies, as well as a whole lotta stuff that’s fundamentally their own. Mainly though, this is just a thrill ride from start to finish. Get it on your stereo, start pogo-ing and accept you’ll be repeating this for the rest of forever. The best band to come out of Sweden since… ooh, I don’t know. Ebba Grön? Yep, probably.
Will Fitzpatrick.

All songs written and performed by . Produced by Ditches and Jeff Burke. Recorded and mixed by Jeff Burke. Additional backing vocals on tracks 1 and 9 by Jeff Burke. Mastered by Dave Williams.

First 100 on Blue Vinyl

Listen HERE
https://drunkensailorrecords.bandcamp.com/album/st-lp-10
Buy HERE
http://www.drunkensailorrecords.co.uk/products/662731-ditches-st-lp-drunken-sailor-records-drunkensailor-121

Still hot. Erik Nervous & The Beta Blockers LP, Alien Nosejob LP, Dark Thoughts LP, The Cowboy 7"