ALBUM REVIEW: The Mistakes – A Good Hill To Die On (Time & Matter Recordings)
The Mistakes are a five-piece punk band from the unlikely punk rock enclave of Poole in Dorset, and A Good Hill To Die On is their fourth album.
I first came across them when they released their previous LP A Head Full Of Damage (reviewed here) in 2021, and loved them immediately.
They trade in rousing, full-pelt punk rock anthems full of riffing guitars, pounding drums, pumping basslines and catchy choruses, along with some biting social commentary.
They have a famous fan in the shape of UK Subs legend Charlie Harper, who guested on their last record, and this is their first album for the Subs’ long-time home, Time & Matter Recordings.
Recorded over a week in October 2022 in Milan, A Good Hill To Die On is a blistering call to arms, and I reckon it’s The Mistakes’ best record yet, which takes some doing, given what’s gone before.
Ross Sutcliffe (vocals), Shane Creech (guitar), new bassist Angus Simpson, James Gould (guitar) and Lewis Willoughby (drums) kick up one hell of a racket, and I’d defy anyone who likes their punk rock served loud to not like this.
Opener Chaos Theory, about our looming climate catastrophe, takes off like a missile, full of fire and defiance, with Sutcliffe sounding for all the world like Animal from Anti Nowhere League circa 1982.
I, Savage is about feeling powerless to stop mankind destroying the planet “like a dinosaur staring at the void, praying for an asteroid”.
Drink Up, Boys! has a Celtic punk feel to it, like Flogging Molly or Ferocious Dog with a harder edge, while Drop Too Much is about fondness for alcohol going too far, with our protagonist concluding: “I’m coming apart like a struck pinata”.
The breakneck Heathens is a two-fingered salute to those who decry the punk scene, with Sutcliffe telling them: “You wanna try and convert me? This is what I believe in” and urging naysayers to “get down the front and feel alive”.
Hack The World slows the pace a little, and talks about wealth distribution, while the title track, A Good Hill To Die On centres on the very modern phenomenon of wars around the world being played out on our TV screens, and our view of such conflicts depending on where we live.
Standard Definition is the standout track in an album full of bangers. Set to a ska-punk beat, it paints a depressing picture of life beneath the breadline in our land of haves and have-nots.
We’re taken into a world of “duckers and divers, scrounging for rollies and fighting over fivers”, while others are “running drugs in the week, still living at their mum’s”. Sutcliffe sums up the only way out of these neglected estates, snarling: “It’s just another life in SD/Only way out is to win the lottery.”
There’s even a doffing of the cap to Uncle Charlie in the song’s Warhead-like coda, “I don’t what it is, but I hear something coming/Can’t tell who scares me more, the Yankees or the Russians.”
Kev is an affectionate (I think) nod to a hardcore Mistakes fan who seems to cause mayhem down the front. Featuring one of the album’s best riffs, it warns: “Get out of his way, he ain’t here to please ya,” describing our hero as “like a car crash, like an atom bomb, you can’t change him, it can’t be done”.
Getting through life and coping with its trials and tribulations with the help of music is the subject of Another Day, while Hindsight And Alcohol, complete with a reggae breakdown, about people who you thought you knew changing.
Essential listening
We’re nearly at the end now, and Runnin’ Out Of Riot is a perfect closer, another fast-paced song about living life to the full, and reflecting on a wild youth as we get older and slow down. Regrets? You won’t find any here.
The Mistakes have come up with another album that’s essential listening for anyone who likes old school punk rock served with a modern twist. Frantic at times, it sparkles with energy, and has hooks to die for, as well as a social conscience and just enough ska to stop it being one dimensional. Great record. 9/10.
