ALBUM REVIEW: Booze & Glory – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Concrete Jungle Records)
Six years after their last album, multi-national street-punk outfit Booze & Glory are back with their sixth record, and it’s a back-to-basics affair which should please fans of old.
Their 2019 album Hurricane (reviewed here) saw them head in a more melodic direction, and risk alienating the less liberal-minded among their fanbase. It even included a cover of an Elton John song.
Now, after winning a long battle with cancer, frontman Marek Rusek is back with a new line-up and a return to the anthemic street-punk which won them so many admirers in the first place.
Formed in London in 2009, B&G were all about catchy hooks, raw energy, and real-deal street vibes. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot sounds like the record they should have written after third album As Bold As Brass.
They’ve dispensed with the keyboards which crept into the last couple of albums and gone for a full-pelt guitars, bass and drums sound, and plenty of their trademark gang choruses. These are singalong anthems in the mould of classic oi! bands like Cock Sparrer, The Business and Argy Bargy.
Since the last album, Herve JL (Deadline, Argy Bargy, The Filaments) has joined on bass and Manny Anzaldo (from psychobilly bands Resurex/Mad Sin) is on guitar, and they sound reinvigorated.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (phonetically named because WTF are we doing with this world?) kicks off with lead single Boys Will Be Boys – nothing to do with noughties indie-Mod revivalists The Ordinary Boys. It sets the pace and tone for the rest of the album, full of cranked-up guitars and a full-on rhythm section.
Brace Up and Mad World are also singles, and show the band firing on all cylinders, with choruses designed to be shouted back at them in the sort of sweaty club shows on which they thrive.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot hits hard in all the right places, whether it’s calling out bullshitters on Jimmy Fake, thanking friends who are closer than kin on Family Isn’t Always Blood, or celebrating the skinhead scene on Brace Up.
I’d Die For You sums up how we all feel about our kids, while Till The Last Breath is a defiant message of hope from a man who’s faced death in the face and won.
The only mis-step is the closing The One And Only, an affectionate pisstake if you know the London punk who it’s about, but a cliquey in-joke if you don’t. That aside, Booze & Glory are back with a bang. 8.5/10.
