ALBUM REVIEW: Midlife Crisis – 45 Turns 33 (Wild Kingdom Records)
The excellently-named Midlife Crisis are a Swedish punk ‘supergroup’ who have been active on and off since 2004.
Fronted by Maryslim bassist Urrke T, and including Dregen of The Hellacopters and Backyard Babies, the four-piece are old friends who have been around the punk rock block more than once,
Their first release was an EP of covers of classic 1977 punk rock songs, and since then they’ve released three more, all on Bootleg Booze Records, the last being in 2018.
From the off the releases featured faithful covers of songs by ’70s bands from England, Sweden, and the USA.
By the third and fourth EPs, a few of Urrke’s original songs were included, and now they’ve brought all four EPs together, and added a couple of original Urkke compositions to form a debut album that’s been 21 years in the making.
It kicks off with Sick Of You by The Users (featuring a young UK Subs bassist Alvin Gibbs) and some of the material is immediately familiar (Slaughter & The Dogs’ Cranked Up Really High, I Need Nothing by Menace and The Avengers’ The American In Me.
I thought Samma Sak sounded familiar, and then realised it’s a Swedish translation of the UK Subs classic The Same Thing.
Other tracks are much more obscure, at least to my ears. If you’ve never heard Vital Hours (originally by UK band The Outsiders) or Raggare (by fellow Swedes PF Commando), you’re in for a treat.
The First Time Is The Best Time, by Boston garage rockers DMZ, is a little lyrically suspect by today’s standards, but all in all this is an enjoyable set of songs, which I suspect the band had an absolute blast making. 8/10.
- You can check out 45 Turns 33 by Midlife Crisis HERE.
