Music > Album Reviews

Popes of Chillitown - Work Hard, Play Hard, See You In the Graveyard

17/05/18

 
Multi-talented, multi-instrumental, genre-blending London-based ska/dub/punk sextet Popes of Chillitown suffer from too many cooks and far too many ingredients in this semi-convincing departure from their previous albums To the Moon and A Word to the Wise.

There are, however, some funky songs in the mix, so funky that they’ll knock yer funkin’ socks off. Songs such as Upside Down and Get Off/Get On are faithful to the fine blend of reggae and rock that they established themselves as the popes, or at the very least priests or bishops of in the first place. But just as often, the cross-pollinating genre mash-ups backfire and many other songs feature some clunky, staccato transitions that that are the musical equivalent of gaffer taping a Picasso to a Monet and proclaiming “Taadaaah!”

For example, Vexed (the track title appropriately describing the state the song leaves you in) or Lego Prisoners rather irreverently switch from full punk/screamo to elevator music, to Drum and Bass and back again. Kudos should always be dished out to artists who continually reinvent themselves, but it would be nice if the teething process or growth spurt happened between albums, rather than slap bang in the middle of them as it has with Work Hard, Play Hard. It’s basically the artistic version of a couple having a domestic during a double date – a little unnecessary and no one wants to know whose turn it was to do the laundry anyway. Their last album To the Moon stuck religiously to what it wanted to be, but this record is an agnostic middle-aged cry for help; one second you’re reminded of The Skints, then blink-182, then Cat Empire, then The Specials, then rounding it off with a bit of the ol’ Sex Pistols.

Lead singer Matt’s lyrics miss the political urgency of ska (instead he moans a lot about not getting laid) and their image is seriously lacking in the whole ‘up yours society’ punk spirit, so their music – at times bouncy and playful, at others abrasive and confrontational has pitched up camp in the awkward limbo between the two. The Popes of Chillitown either need to go entirely for the cheesy fun or they need to step things up and go full Johnny Rotten and dye their hair all kinds of outlandish colours. The only certainty is that they need to make their bloody minds up.

4/10