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Amateur Party

Truncheons In The Manor

Written by: PP on 13/06/2011 03:52:11

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes that approach can be more accurate than you think. It certainly applies for Philadelphia's Amateur Party, who live up their name in every respect on their debut album "Truncheons In The Manor". It's a record that sounds like a bunch of amateurs having fun amongst themselves by playing a style of punk long out of style - the 70s one - with crappy low-budget production that removes even the slightest chance these songs had on impressing anyone.

Sure, sometimes all it takes to write a good record is to have fun with your friends while writing and recording songs. But very often the result is like Amateur Party, songs that fail to incite a response in the listener, songs that go in one ear and out the other. You just rarely tend to hear about those kind of bands because they never get to the point where they actually find a record label to release their album. But here it is, though, and old school sounding punk album that combines early pop punk with the classic punk style of bands like The Jam. It's an honorable idea in itself, but the execution lacks in just about every department, most noticeably in the songwriting one. Because despite a few decent cuts like "Shallow" and "Let Youth Be Your Drug", the majority of the album sounds extremely dated and irrelevant, not least because of it's non-existent production that leaves the guitars sounding flat and the drums faded far too much to the background. I know it's probably self-produced and all, but in this era of technological advance it's no excuse when you can make a great sounding recording with a basic computer and just a couple of mics. Anyway, there's no point in dissecting the album more when the bottom line is this: forgettable, anonymous old school punk with virtually no chance of 'making it' in 2011.

Download: Shallow, Let Youth Be Your Drug
For the fans of: The Jam, Minutemen
Listen: Bandcamp

Release date 18.01.2011
Rorschach Records