Perhaps it's not surprising that Finnish punk rockers Slap Betty cause all these trouble. After all, they're known for cutting the electricity at festivals, getting into a car accident while on their way to take a picture with Santa and often reporting their guitar player to be missing. Their previous album visited the Finnish charts and I think this one is going to do that too. If you're in for catchy punk rock and a good slab of bad luck, this is something for you.
The album opens with 'World We Leave Behind', a solid and raw punk rock song, written for the former prime minister and current minister of finances Alexander Stubb. Yet, not all the songs are political inspired. Most of them are simply strong rock songs, reminding me of everything between Ramones, Paranoiacs, Green Day and whatever punk rock band you can imagine. Is that good? Fuck yeah it is.
Slap Betty doesn't care about trends, electronics, genres, nifty details or technical feats. They just want to rock and that's exactly what they do. Songs like 'List Of Things That I Hate', '27', 'Piece Of Me' and 'Time To Get Wasted' are strong songs, perfectly capable of setting an audience on fire, probably literally. On 'High Class Hooker' it suddenly becomes clear that there's a bit of glam rock influences present too, reminding me of Motley Crue or Poison.
Anyway, this certainly is an excellent soundtrack for those who like to live on the edge and take risks. I mean, this is perfect car cruising music but it might get you in an accident. This is perfect live music but might cause the building to collapse on you. Is it worth the risk? Well, sure, why not, it's way better to get murdered by a solid rock album than by whatever games our politicians decide to play on us, right? So buy it, I dare you...
​Serge