ALBUM REVIEW: Dirt Box Disco – Rokapokalips (Avenue Recordz)
Loads of people can write songs, but few of them have the knack of crafting instant earworms down to such a fine art as the man known as Spunk Volcano.
To the uninitiated – and if that’s you, where have you been for the last 10+ years? – he’s the frontman and songwriter for Dirt Box Disco, a glam-punk band from the Midlands.
Influenced by bands as varied as Kiss, Showaddywaddy, Ramones, Rancid, and Nirvana, they’re loud, a bit rude, often quite crude, and enormous fun.
Rokapokalips is their ninth album, coming three years after their previous offering, 2020’s TV Sex Show (reviewed here), and by their standards that’s quite tardy, as up to then they were averaging an album a year!
What’s most astonishing about their workrate is that the masked lunatic who writes their songs also has a side project, Spunk Volcano and the Eruptions, who have released six albums in nine years, including a double!
It’s very rare for the quality of songs to dip, and that’s because Spunk sticks to a tried and tested formula. Loads of energy, chunky riffs, angry or silly lyrics, a killer backbeat, and what’s become the Dirt Box Disco trademark – big singalong choruses.
There’s plenty of those in evidence among the 10 tracks here, not least on the title track, which is basically three and a half minutes of self-aggrandisement – something else DBD do very well.
Things kick off with #bollocks, which is basically Mr Volcano venting about things which make him angry. And they close with We’re Not Taking Any Shit From You, which is a defiant two-fingered gesture to anyone who cares to listen.
Land Of Hope And Glory is a slightly more considered rant, bemoaning the state of the country, and concluding that “this Great Britain is a pile of shit“.
Kill The Music is an upbeat singalong number which deals with a serious subject, namely depression, as Spunk sings “Kill the music I don’t wanna dance, I’d kill myself given half a chance“.
Needing anti-depressants to cope with the stresses and strains of everyday life is the subject of Happy Pills (“two in the morning, two at night, happy pills gonna make you feel all right“.
I Don’t Wanna Go Without You is a clever inversion of one of their previous songs, I Don’t Wanna Go Out With You, and deals with relationships. See, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Spoilt Brat
Spoilt Brat is a contender for standout track, a furious two minute and 20 second blast at kids (or, more likely, their parents) who claim ADHD or similar conditions are responsible for their offspring’s bad behaviour. It pulls no punches with its verdict: “Making excuses for the way you act/You’re not autistic, you’re just a twat!“
But the biggest chorus of all in an album full of them is the double entendre-packed Up The Dirtbox, a live classic in the making, which almost made me spit beer everywhere as the boys sing: “You know you love it, up the Dirtbox/You know you love it, up the Dirtbox.” Brilliant, and I can’t wait to join in at Rebellion. 8.5/10.
