Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Stay Clean Jolene - S/T LP - Red Vinyl (/200)

Untitled

Dead Broke / Drunken Sailor / Rad Girlfriend / Eager Beaver (2014)

Now it's gotten to the point where I am scrambling to get the reviews I need to have done before I am able to put up my top albums of the year list.  I'm actually delaying the list now, in large part because of this Stay Clean Jolene album.  Even though it's a really late entry into the list of 2014 releases, I had a feeling it was going to be one of the best.  I wasn't wrong.

As I had bought and written about the band's debut 7" a while ago, I was pretty confident I'd be into this record.  Stay Clean Jolene even exceeded my lofty expectations.  UK based, Stay Clean Jolene drawing from the rich history of amazing melodic punkers they have over there.  You can hear the touch stones of Leatherface and Snuff, especially in the way the guitar weaves in and out, creating layers of leads and chords that elevate each song to be something special.  The vocals actually remind me a bit of bands like Dan Padilla.  There's some gravel in the raspy delivery, but it's a bit smoother and really carries melody better than a lot of bands that go down this path. 

I do have one negative thing to say and it's not even anything about any of the actual songs.  I was a little disappointed that 3 of the 10 songs on the album had already been released on the bands first 7".  Being the selfish bastard I am, I would have preferred 10 new songs.  But, if you don't already have the 7" for some reason, it just makes picking up this full length even more essential.  Stay Clean Jolene was worth holding up my year end list for.  Hopefully I can have it finished up early next week.  Stay tuned.

Stay Clean Jolene - S/T LP:

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