Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
You are always warned to keep away from the first signs of infection, that the Doctor in all their professional wisdom would prescribe isolation, would suggest that the neighbourhood be cleansed, scrubbed down, let the rebellion in the body fight its own battle and wait it out, let the infection subside. In most cases though, the doctor is only hoping, for quite often the feeling of the infectious is dynamic, positive, it is the beautiful rude awakening and rebellious, it is to understand the surge of the dance that you might never have found inhabiting your body before.
It is the sign of the infectious that makes Neville & Sugary Staple’s collaboration in the album Rude Rebels such an enjoyable moment, a pulse-driven experience which takes you down a route to which a health care professional slowly lifts your wrists and declares that the patient is now firmly in the area of the non-conforming and rebellious souls; it is a sign that you have broken free of any restraints that once bound you to only live in a particular way, that you could not feel empathy for another person’s dance or struggle.
The upbeat and vocal statement to be found in Rude Rebels is sincere, affirmative, progressive, it is fitting that it comes hand in hand with the 40th anniversary of 2-Tone Records, a monumental moment in time in itself; yet this album is not a pastiche or reflection of the sound that came with the arrival of bands such as The Specials or The Selecter, it is how the genre has moved on, and again like The Selecter and their iconic front-woman, Pauline Black, it is confident, a strident effect on the scene.
In tracks such as Rebel Down, Tattoo King, Dirty Little Liar, Way I Love You and the album closer of Woulda Coulda Shoulda, the originality of the album is striking, a massive statement on the times we live in, in many ways a kinder world, more inclusive that when Ska hit the ground running in the dark days of 1970s Britain, and yet a world which shies away from allowing debate, the shouters and demanding drowning out the reasonable and softly spoken.
Never one to allow the pure at heart’s voice to be silenced, Neville Staples and the band that inhabit the album unleash the Rude Rebels like a force storming the bastille; it might only release one or two from the confines of their own thought, but the result will continue down the ages, a new world is waiting and the passionately vocal will have their day once more. An upbeat wonder, a sense of cool, it can only be the return of Neville Staple.
Neville & Sugary Staple release Rude Rebels via Cleopatra Records on 28th September.
Ian D. Hall