EP REVIEW: Booze & Glory – The Reggae Sessions Vol 2 (Pirates Press Records)
Booze & Glory made their name as a streetpunk band in the mould of ’80s forebears like the Cockney Rejects, The Last Resort and The Business.
But they showed there was more to them than oi, oi, oi choruses with a successful foray into traditional reggae with The Reggae Sessions Vol 1 back in 2018.
They teamed up with Vespa and the Londonians to record three 7in singles featuring mono and stereo versions of three of their best-loved songs, London Skinhead Crew, Only Fools Get Caught and Leave The Kids Alone.
Two albums and one global pandemic later, they closed out 2021 with more of the same, this time giving the reggae treatment to six songs from their two most recent albums.
Thus we get very different versions of Blood From A Stone, Back On Track and Carry On, from 2017’s fourth album Chapter IV. Then from 2019’s Hurricane album (reviewed here) they give us Live It Up, Three Points and Ten Years.
Fans will need no introduction to opener Blood From A Stone, as it’s one of their best songs, and it works just as well as a reggae tune as a punk one.
Live It Up is set to a gentle skanking beat instead of furious streetpunk clatter, while Three Points is transformed from a rowdy football anthem into a laid-back calypso tune, complete with the ‘Bubbles‘ refrain played on trumpet!
Side two kicks off with Carry On, which is slowed down from a full-throttle anthem of defiance into an altogether different beast, though its message remains the same.
Back On Track, one of Booze & Glory’s most positive songs, has its big power chords and gang choruses replaced trumpet solos and an entirely more chilled feel, and its message ‘the only time you should ever look back is to see how far you’ve come’ makes it the most enjoyable song on this EP.
Closing out the collection is Ten Years, which is turned from a chugging punk rocker into another blissed-out anthem of positivity, about living life to the full, which is a lesson for us all after the couple of years we’ve just gone through.
It makes you wonder what other ‘versions’ Booze & Glory have up their sleeve, and whether one day they might play a whole live set of their songs in reggae style. That really would be a gig worth going to.
The Reggae Sessions Vol. 2 is available direct from Pirates Press Records on blood red with black galaxy or piss yellow with black galaxy vinyl HERE.
