LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW 25th September 2026
Speedy, scuzzy, with a grabby hook and simple guitar figures, the opener, ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’, is everything the rest of the album is; pop punk that exudes fun.
Remember “(Everyone’s On) Top Of The Pops”? ‘Can’t Stand My Baby’? Well, The Rezillos never stopped and fifty years on, they are as punk as they were. Not that they were slavishly punk in the first place. Without the politics and attack, the attitude was about having fun. The music was pure punk, short, speedy and simple.
I’m delighted to say this is a direct descendant of those days, showing all the years Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds have spent gigging and keeping the spirit alive. The Rezillos were always more like a punky Cramps than a Sex Pistols follower. Riffs and hooks bang out, like the epically catchy ‘The Peppermint Girl’ (in the Peppermint Lounge), playing up that Poison Ivy / Lux Interior vibe. Like that band, Fay and Eugene are the core of the band and write all the songs, along with Martin Metcalfe, the band’s guitarist.
I started to list highlights as I listened but ended up listing the first three tracks then gave up, as each is a favourite while it’s on. Last track, ‘Explotando’, a bonus on the CD and digital is great – a Link Wray-ish piece of Western thrills and it’s a shame vinyl people are deprived of it.
This is trash-glam psycho sci-fi and songs like ‘Cranium’ are pure fun. There are roots in pop and elsewhere too (Fay has an alt-country band called The Countess of Fife), leading to songs like the snippy yet snappy ‘Curse of the Pretty Man’. I hear country rhythms on that twangy guitar on ‘3 Man Junkie Riot’. These are the sort of songs that will be pure fun live and aren’t that far from the sort of pop-punk that was cheering teen lives in 78 – 81. Fast, disposable, daft; what punk music should be.
Ross McGibbon