The Beat Surrender

‘Mug’ is the eye catching new album from Sexy Butchers, a four piece punk/rock outfit with brains. Contained within are a couple of crowd pleasing ‘anthems’ along with some more…odd ones, and they’re all enjoyable.

It quickly became apparent that this is a band with a sense of humour – as illustrated by the first ‘track’ on the album, the bands rudimentary website (still ‘under construction’) and accompanying promo literature I was given. They aren’t a comedy ‘gimmick’ band though.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get the free DVD I received to work – the accompanying notes on the box said if this was the case, it was due to the poor quality of my DVD player….So I don’t know what delights I’ve missed out on there. Stupid DVD player.

Musically, most of the songs on ‘Mug’ are composed of big bass lines and urgent guitars. There is nice use of distortion on the guitars and time is kept with some crisp drumming.

Track 7, ‘On The Rocks’, is played with a clean guitar; it’s a mellow strummer which I can’t quite weigh up – lyrically; it’s got dark overtones – or maybe it’s just me. Yeah, I fancy having dark overtones. Any road, there is a dark theme to most of the songs which are deep and well thought out. Track 8, ‘Blankety Blank’ begins with what sounds like one of their mates swearing A LOT – he’s obviously upset about something.

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