The Offenders: X

Artist: The Offenders
Title: X
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 16th October 2015
Reviewed By: Dan Stoten

When the press release accompanying a band's new release states that they're for fans of The Slackers, The Skints and King Prawn, you as a reader of The Punk Archive would undoubtedly and understandably get a bit excited. As the Editor of TPA, I did too, and approached X with a huge sense of optimism.

Unfortunately, this was unfounded. To me, X is a pretty underwhelming album from a band who don't seem to be able to identify their sound, resulting in a melting-pot of styles which doesn't fit together well.

Within the first four songs, for example, there's enough genre variation to confuse even the most open of music fans. Alles Muss Raus is a fairly generic traditional ska track with a soft-rock influenced chorus; while Harsh Reality has an undoubtedly indie beat. Tons Of Drunks And Party Scum then has a poor-man's Rancid style, while St Pauli Jugend is back to the punk-influenced soft-rock style chorus with a trad-ska verse. For me, while in practice you'd expect all this to work well together, it just doesn't fit and ends up a little confused.

Nothing feels strong enough across the whole album for me. I want the punk edges to be spikier and more aggressive; I want the ska to be far more bouncy and in-my-face; and I want the choruses to be far more raucous and catchy. It's all incredibly polished but actually feels pretty muffled and restricted by that polish, so much so that nothing stands out at all.

One thing I am a fan of here (as well as the brilliant album artwork), though, is the use of the organ. It's an unashamedly retro throwback and is something many bands could use effectively. It's used really well in probably the best track on the album, Martens Style. Here, at least, there's some decent energy, an easily memorable and shoutable chorus, and a bouncy, energetic ska-backdrop. It's also only trying to be one thing: this is a ska track through and through, and doesn't get confused by trying to add anything else into the mix.

And that's the crux of the issue for The Offenders in my eyes. If they could concentrate on just one or two styles, as opposed to attempting to get everything in, this would be a hugely improved album and one which I'm sure I'd return to. As it is, I'm finding it a very hard record to recommend, and one I'm very unlikely to come back to.