ALBUM REVIEW: Millie Manders And The Shut Up – Wake Up, Shut Up, Work (self-released)
Four years after their stunning debut album Telling Truths, Breaking Ties, Millie Manders And The Shut Up are back with the long-awaited follow-up.
But whereas Telling Truths (reviewed here) didn’t reach its potential audience due to the pandemic, Wake Up, Shut Up, Work proves MMATSU are ready to take a great leap forwards to much wider recognition.
They follow a summer of festivals – including Rebellion, where this record is launched on August 2 – with a full UK tour in October and November, and bigger stages surely await them, as befits a band of their talents.
MMATSU have had a change in personnel since the first album, with Joe Quigley on guitar and Pete Wright on drums joining vocalist Millie and bassist Georgina Boreham, but if anything it’s lifted them a level, though that scarcely seemed possible.
They’re earning quite a reputation for the energy and intensity of their live shows (read our latest review here) and they translate it onto record as well, with the guitar crunching just a bit harder and the rhythm section just a bit funkier. This album is much more of a band collaboration, and sounds better for it.
I’d heard about half of Wake Up, Shut Up, Work before, either drip-fed as singles or performed live, so much of it felt familiar. That didn’t detract from the enjoyment though; it’s 12 slices of genre-crossing punk – fierce, compassionate and dealing with very modern concerns such as mental health, sexual abuse and what’s happening in the world around us.
Angry side
It kicks off with Angry Side, released as a single in May, with Millie on top vocal form as she lays out the mistakes of her youth from the off: “Things I did when I was 17/Still haunt me in my daydreams…” As a self-confessional it’s powerful stuff, but if this feels like a very personal album, she’s just getting started.
Shut Your Mouth has been around even longer, since last summer, but it still bites hard as Millie comes to grips with toxic friendships, while sax-soaked ska-punk banger Fun Sponge deals with the type of people who suck all the enjoyment out of life.
Halloween is a tender ballad about a short-lived love affair, and things move up a gear with Rebound, one of the standout tracks, about not settling for being someone’s recovery romance. MMATSU are on top form here, demonstrating perfect pop sensibility which really deserves to see them going places.
Following those two is a re-version of an old song, One That Got Away, which has been around since 2018, when it featured on the Shutup EP. This album version is more urgent and polished, but Millie’s resists the temptation to tamper with the lyrics as she reflects: “I’ll be the one that got away/But you’re the one that got away.”
Millie really shows her versatility, speak-singing in places, rapping in others, and every so often unleashing the remarkable instrument that is her full vocal range. It’s most evident on Halloween and the excellent R.I.P. which could be interpreted as being about the death of a relationship or the damage we’re doing to the planet.
Can I Get Off, the double-A-side of the latest single, is MMATSU at their most political. It’s an outpouring of frustration at the hate and division being stoked by people for their own ends: “Can I get off of this planet/Is there a way to escape/From all the pain and destruction/And fascists fuelling the hate.” Millie really sticks her neck out, calling for boys in bands who shout about how much they hate Tories to speak out about things like the plight of Palestinian people, rather than staying silent for fear of losing followers.
There’s another standout in the shape of Threadbare, another upbeat sax-driven song about struggling with the cost of … well, everything. Half-sung and half-rapped, it’s destined to be yet another live favourite.
Powerful
But the darkest and most powerful song here is Me Too, about the disgraceful ordeal women face after reporting sexual violence, being blamed rather than being treated victims. There’s real anger as Millie roars: “It doesn’t matter what we wear/It doesn’t matter how we speak/The conversation’s still the same/You blame the girl for being weak.”
It’s even better live, but that’s the case with most of these remarkable songs. Wake Up, Shut Up, Work is a real album of the year contender. 9/10.
