Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Radicalism is not dead, no matter how hard some may try to bang another nail into the coffin of much needed change, the young of today keep finding a voice and it is a voice that needs urgently to be listened to. Like the music that sprang forth with the likes of the great Pauline Black and Coventry band The Selecter or The Specials, if you refuse to listen, if you lock your door and hideaway behind the thought that all is cosy in the world, then the shock of superbly interesting lyrics and great musicianship that comes out Liverpool band Bolshy and their E.P. RADICAL. ANARCHIC. BOLSHY. SCOUSE might just make you change your mind and actually listen and get your mind out of the television schedules.
This talented group of musicians can be found almost anytime on the streets of their city, playing what seems like for fun as they busk away with smiles on their faces, but take a moment, listen, and worry, not for the future of the band or the lives of the members in it, bit for the lack of understanding afforded a generation that is in danger of being misplaced, none have got less to lose that those with righteous anger on their side.
With Ivy Jlassi on vocals, Jennifer Birchard-Collins on trombone, Robyn Hargreaves playing the type of saxophone you wish you could just love all day long, Andrew Lockhart’s drums, Sam Harrison on bass and backing vocals, the talented Harley Stewart and Louis Kushner on guitars, RADICAL. ANARCHIC. BOLSHY. SCOUSE isn’t just another E.P. it is the combination of message, truth and history that you wish all the young in Britain would adhere to, yes you want the best for your children, you want them to have the fantastic things you didn’t have but surely you want them to fight for you and your rights just as hard as they want you to support their thoughts.
Some may find the songs slightly on edge, however that is what happens when you deny a section of society a voice and in songs such as Counting F****, the excellent No Means No and Payroll Call, the radical isn’t just in the heart it is also in the mind, it is the communication between generations that goes unheard, the frank talk on how the world and government after government is letting them down and taking advantage of them. Bolshy may be a name but it is also an inalienable right that must be preserved, who better than this great band who really know how to make an E.P. rock.
Ian D. Hall