"Biggest Boy" is an awful song. I go to a dive bar karaoke event every once in a while and the owner of the bar always gets up to sing. He sings songs with really blatant awful rhyming and does so in a bassy voice that is closer to talking than singing. At the dive bar on a Friday after a couple hours, it's rather endearing. When a lady singer talk-sings lines that rhyme brain with insane over a fast ska rhythm with punk breakdowns it is bordering on torture. Throw a dub effect on those vocals and it becomes a nightmare.

Luckily the record improves as you continue through the tracks. "Murder for Rent" is actually pretty good with some nice harmony in the vocals. But then the last track brings the terrible memories back with a weird reggae/shuffle/disco + hardcore punk/dub thing that just makes you sad. And you're made more sad by the fact that the bassist and drummer absolutely SLAY their instruments on this recording. Fantastic intricate bass lines form the cornerstone of a seriously tight rhythm section. Ska guitar is just an accent, so that's not the drawback. The vocals are just a complete letdown, made worse by the use of dub echo.

This recording is probably the only way a ska song could ever make you sad.

If you like this review, you can buy me a coffee.