Rip It Up

Rip It Up

Rip It Up
Ankh Music

These eleven, rather eclectic songs, are, if nothing else, a curious concoction of whiz-bang potential amid a slipstream of rock’n’punk’n’surf drenched familiarity. A musical ménage a trios if you’ll pardon the expression (but not necessarily the image), that bequeaths the listener with an abundance of cerebral induced sounds, many of which trigger many a moment.

Formed in the summer of 2006 and named after the classic Orange Juice hit of the eighties, Rip It Up’s same named debut introduces itself by way of a deft, delicate and somewhat surprising rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Angel.’ Going by the song’s opening guitar riff, one instinctively knows one’s in for a perpetual roller-coaster ride through the back pages of Messrs. Al Gregg and Rashid Ali’s (s)punk, drunk celebration, which in and of itself, snuff to procure many a wondrous musical waif in waiting. That said rendition consists solely of voice and guitar - neither of which outstay their respective welcome(s) for a moment - plays testament to the duo’s divine dogma of propulsive brevity.

The uber distortion of Penetration’s ‘Call It A Day’ and the title track itself, admittedly reveal closet limitation and something of a rogue like quality, although the drum-machine aesthetics throughout both, do much to inject the album with that of a (much sought after) spit’n’wit naivety. And depending on yer viewpoint, such drama can occasionally teeter upon the precipice of petulance and innocence: simultaneously. Yesireeeeeeeeeeee, this is more than substantiated by the eventual swathes of Gregg’s intuitively, distorted guitars.

While ‘Trash’ is reminiscent of a Prince out-take and the cod-reggae of ‘I Think You Ought To Know’ (replete with guitar harmonics) isn’t exactly a hundred miles removed from that of third division noo-wavers, The Members - who, for some reason or another, are still strutting their stuff - the strongest and most cohesive track on display has to be ‘Out Of Control.’

Once again, it does that teetering thing - which, if truth be qualified, is the one thing that’ll irrevocably set Rip It Up apart from the several hundred thousand other albums upon release this week.
http://www.reverbnation.com/thebandripitup

David Marx
www.davidmarx.co.uk
www.myspace.com/davidmarx