Another blast of rowdy and romantic punk on Chubby And The Gang’s third broadside from the London streets.
Chubby And The Gang kick against the orthodoxies of what it means to be a hardcore punk band in modern Britain. They’re not even really a band anymore for a start, mainman Charlie “Chubby Charles” Manning having dispensed with the services of his Gang to play all the instruments on this third album himself.
This complete control manifests in a dynamic set of tunes that take in country guitar picking on There’s A Devil In The Jukebox, the unashamedly soppy Two Hearts and a straight-up piano ballad in the shape of closer Cocaine Sunday. You could even imagine Nick Cave covering the ominous, slow-burning To Fade Away, an admittedly rare example of Charlie not sounding like he’s singing with his mouth full like The Clash's Joe Strummer or Tim Armstrong from Rancid.
Of course, elsewhere Chubby continue to cherrypick from the spectrum of rowdy street sounds, with hardcore drumming, rock’n’roll frenzy, pub rock catchiness and terrace chant fervour all still in evidence. If American bands like The Gaslight Anthem and Rancid present a romanticised or heightened snapshot of life in their particular stomping grounds, And Then There Was… does something similar with London, its tunes digging into the city’s strata of boozers, football grounds and music venues to unearth something indelibly evocative of the capital and the last half century of its guitar music.
Whether going ‘Wild in the streets’ on the ’80s rock-flavoured A Lust For More, delving into Oi! on Anticop or tapping into arms-round-your mate bonhomie on The Bonnie Banks, each song here finds Charlie fully committing to the job in hand. The Gang may be gone, but Chubby lives on.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: The Chisel, Rancid, Fucked Up
And Then There Was… is released on October 4 via Flatspot
