| CD REVIEW Nanas Revenge |
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Band : Nanas Revenge Originally based in South Cumbrian coastal town Barrow-in-Furness and formed almost 6 years ago, "Punk Rock act with a difference" (also affectionally calling themselves "Scumbrians") Nanas Revenge (what a f***ing weird bandname!) first took the hard road and started playing around their own area (not exactly an ideal place to propagate Punk Rock or modern music in general). They finally succeeded in putting up some songs on their MySpace page somewhere in April 2006, and I think that must also have been around the same time that the foursome comprised of leadsinger/ guitarist Jonny Smith, guitarist/ backing singer Sam Sharp, bassist Stirzaker, and drummer/ backing singer Dan Powell packed up all their gear and made a 150 km trip to relocate to Leeds...and they haven't had any regrets since! Besides supporting the likes of Captain Everything, Failsafe, 4 Ft Finger, Jesse James, and Random Hand (to name but a few) on sepearate occasionans, NR lso played at last year's Guilfest (headlined by, a.o., Supergrass, Squeeze, and Madness). Late February of this year the foursome entered Leeds' Cottage Road Studios (recording space for the likes of 4 Ft Fingers and Kaizer Chiefs on previous occasions) with producer Andy Hawkins to record a 7-track mini-album to display their current hybridisation of an early Skate Punk sound with influences from the likes of Propagandhi, Rise Against, NOFX, Thrice, and Ignite (to name, again, but a few – check out the band's MySpace page for further details). Halfway June, the guys were contacted by Lockjaw, who offered to aid the band in expanding their area of influence out of the purely local...an offer eagerly accepted. The songs are quite riveting and not devoid of occasional changes in pace, etc...take the weirdly called "Rigor Mortis", for instance, which is still Punk Rock, but definitely with some strange influence in the guitar. Then there's moments where you would expect the band to fall into a possible ballad, like in "Home & Away", which picks up in pace only 70 seconds into the 3:37 song. Hey...why do I explain this to you? You can listen to the track at myspace.com/nanasrevenge, as well as 3 other songs, giving you a very fair idea of what to expect! If you're rather into getting to know a band through a live confrontation, know then that such a thing is within the realm of possibilities for people in Germany (only two gigs in Berlin), Holland (Pijnakker and Naaldwijk) and Belgium (in that order), as the band is currently on a tour in the UK and has planned to finish it with dates in our countries (the Belgian date – Nov. 9 at Wilrijk's JC Vizit added in these last forthnight). If I can be honest, they aren't my favourite kinda band to wanna go see live (because even if the music itself is indeed a nicely melodic Punk Rock with-a-difference...the material written and played according to higher standards...the voices are a bit high pitch and somewhat heady), but you're free to have your own opinion about that. I mean, if we all felt the same about everything, there wouldn't be any need for variety at all...and the world would be a boring place to live in! Wait...in a filosophical way that wouldn't even be true, because if indeed everybody's taste would be the same, there would be nó boredom (?!). Aach... 83/100 Tony. |