ALBUM REVIEW: Gen and the Degenerates – Anti-Fun Propaganda (Marshall Records)
Gen And The Degenerates are a five-piece alt-punk collective from Liverpool who have spent the last few years building up quite a head of steam.
They have an EP and a couple of singles to their name so far, and Anti-Fun Propaganda is their debut album, featuring 10 tracks of all-new material.
Fronted by striking singer Genevieve Glynn-Reeves, Gen And The Degenerates are tipped to go places. She’s joined by Sean Healand-Sloan and Jacob Jones on guitars, Jay Humphreys on bass and Evan Reeves on drums, and together they make music which is difficult to pigeonhole, but hard to ignore.
Torch songs rub shoulders with fuzzed-out rockers and disco bangers, and they’re not afraid to tackle some of the biggest issues of the day, from gender politics to online toxicity.
Things kick off with Kids Wanna Dance, which isn’t as upbeat as it sounds. Set against a propulsive beat and fuzzy guitar, it’s about climate change, and concludes there’s nothing we can do about it, so we might as well have a good time.
Gen warns: “Pre-determined, it’s out of our hands/Might as well cancel all of your plans/Just dance, just dance, just dance.”
In similar vein, title track Anti-Fun Propaganda is about how to cope when it feels like the world is going to shit around you, and again concludes you need to have fun, rather than finding it all too much.
Gen’s voice is powerful and distinctive, by turns sounding vulnerable, yearning and defiant, and she shows on Girls! Ft. Uninvited, which has a great riff and a funky bassline, that she can turn her hand to rap-singing too.
Lead track BIG HIT SINGLE, powered by a fat bassline, is a tongue-in-cheek riposte to the standard record company demand for a hit. Gen’s full of sass as she sings: “You wanna hit/I’ll write a hit/You wanna hit/So shut up and take it.”
That’s Enough Internet For Today addresses the perils of building too much of your life around your online persona, while All Figured Out muses over what would be a perfect life – being a stay-at-home mum, a happily stuck-in-a-rut bus driver or indeed a hermit crab!
Latest single Famous, which tackles celebrity culture, materialism and self-worth, is driven by off-kilter guitars, and asks: “”When I’m famous will we fall in love/When I’m famous will that be enough?”
Post-Cool, all jagged post-punk riffs and irregular beats, is the band’s take on pretentious trend-chasing, while epic closer Jude’s Song is different to anything else on the album.
It’s an affectionate tribute to Gen’s late aunt and celebrates the good things in her life before concluding: “I don’t know what happens when we die/But I’m glad that for a while we were alive at the same time.”
Anti-Fun Propaganda is an album which offers something new with every listen, and it’s a very accomplished debut indeed. 8/10.
- Anti-Fun Propaganda is available on LP, CD and cassette from Marshall Records HERE. Gen And The Degenerates tour the US with Flogging Molly around its release, before returning for UK dates in May.
