Album Review: Scallwags - 25 (2021)
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| Cover Artwork by Christian Bögle |
Scallwags - 25
Release Date: November 12, 2021
Label / Distribution: Wolverine Records / Broken Silence
Format: Vinyl / Digital
Length: 39:43
Genre: Punk Rock / Punk'n'Roll
Origin: Schweinfurt, Germany
Let us do some Punk Rock math. In the year 1996, The Ramones disbanded after 22 years. In the same year, Schweinfurt's Scallwags were formed. The vinyl record on hand marks the 25th anniversary of the Scallwags - three years longer than The Ramones, and still rocking. That is Scallwags 1:0 Ramones.
In these twenty-five years, the Scallwags have released one demo tape and six studio albums. In the year 2006 (their tenth anniversary), the Best Of Compilation "Scallwags" contained songs from the band's three albums "Rock'n'Roll" (1999), "Rock'n'Roll Rodeo" (2000), and "Rock'n'Roll Conspiracy" (2003). Thus, the Scallwags chose songs from the later three albums "Rock'n'Roll Radio" (2006), "Rock'n'Roll Crash Course" (2009), and "Rock'n'Roll Requiem" (2018) for "25". Also, the compilation on hand contains two brand new songs, 'Over & Out' and 'Desperate Lullaby (Song for Alan)'.
[after writing the review I found out that on Bandcamp, Spotify, etc, the song order differs from the vinyl version]
The vinyl's two sides are two little time travels. Both. A-Side and B-Side are opened by one of the new tracks. The Scallwags then present music from 2018, the antifascist anthem 'No Pasarán!' (A-Side), the angry Hardcore Punk banger 'This means War', and the Fukushima-inspired 'Wake-up Call' (B-Side). The Lower Franconian quartet's fifth album from 2009 is represented by the anti-propaganda hymn 'Set on Fire' and the song about drugs 'Here I am' on the A-Side, and by the melancholic 'For a Second' and the song about the tough night life in Bangkok's red light districts 'So pretty' on the B-Side. The backwards journey through time ends with four tracks from "Rock'n'Roll Radio": 'Turn on the Radio' is about hearing your own music on broadcast, and it was the first song I have ever known by the Scallwags when it was featured on a Plastic Bomb sampler. The A-Side ends with 'Breakdown',a first-person narration in which the protagonist tries to soothe and calm down a suicidal friend. The final tracks of the B-Side are the hommage to a skater from Schweinfurt 'Stray Kid Rock' and 'Save the World', a song about constantly receiving jeremiads and still trying to stay positive about making this world a better place.
And although each of these eleven tracks has not lost a bit of its topicality, the two new tracks even add up to the current zeitgeist. In 'Over & Out' the band presents a last goodbye to society. A great choice for opening up an album by saying 'Bye Bye'. The second site's first track 'Desperate Lullaby (Song for Alan)' is dedicated to Alan Kurdi, a child from Syria full of hopes and dreams before he drowned near the shores of Turkey because the boat the refugee child was on sunk.
The band's energetic mix of Skate Punk, Rock'n'Roll, and some Hardcore influence are a great fit for melancholic or sad songs, banging punk anthems, or party songs likewise. If you have had the chance to see the Scallwags live in concert, you know how wild the band can become. And so, finally the compilation '25' makes you raise your glass to another 25 years of the Scallwags.
Music from every post will stay in the MangoRotation playlist for 14 days.
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