Journalists and parents tend to forget that musicianship comes easily to children. If you grow up with parental encouragement, access to musical instruments and music in the background of life at home, a passable imitation of Judy Garland, Robbie Williams or Joe Strummer is part of normal family life. A ten year old who can play four chords, stay in time and sing convincingly is not unusual and not exceptional. I've seen stagefulls of three year olds playing violin, for crying out loud.
So deciding that pre-teen assault on the music industry is a vital move might not be such a great idea. There will be at least some awkward sods who don’t see the need to make allowances for age and who are only impressed if the music makes it on its own merits.
So my only question is "do OUTL4W make the grade as 2 or 3 chord wonders with attitude?" And on this 12 track CD the answer is, bluntly, "No". It's loud, fresh, in time, in tune (mostly) and crisply mastered. Artwork and general presentation look very good indeed. But the essence of the musical form they adopt is 100% missing - transformed into cute kids pretending to be older than they are.
The massive problem for me is that what I hear is working class outsider culture being plundered and sanitised by a second generation of adult managers rather than expressed by kids from their own starting point. The lyrics are dumb (And that's good) but they're also polite enough to have been written by a TV scriptwriter for the soap characters' school band (titles like "Junk Food", "My Mum Says" and "Rock & Roll Outl4w" say all you need to know on that score).
The tunes are generic punk/oi shoutings – the very easiest things that any fourpiece band could be asked to write or play. The tempo lashes along, with a well battered kit deployed by the only non-Bentham in the band, Stuart Newburn. They have copied the easier early UK punk rather than the more demanding Green Day sort of thing. But, crucially, it doesn't have it’s own spirit. It sounds faked, because in all sorts of (entirely genuine and enthusiastic) ways it is faked.
|
In the wider perspective of growing up very fast, "Get In The Van" is a very polished rehearsal for something else that might or might not come later. Talent is on display, for sure, and it could develop into something special. But the strongest message I get from this is about enthusiastic adults' presentation of children's good work. Somehow it all looks better than it should do, better than it needs to. The stylish CD case, with pictures of brand new clothes, haircuts and instruments and a folded poster to stick on your bedroom wall are the very opposite of punk - aspiring not to rejection and alienation but to appropriation, commodification and generic celebrity. A "bit of fun" maybe? A Rugrats take on new music? But not punk.
To the band's credit the consistent sound and quality of the songs is not disrupted or in any way eclipsed by their closing track "If The Kids Are United". They have at least been true to their musical template. But punk never was about the music. If anything it was against the music and against the industry. This CD turns that upside down in so many puzzling ways.
The Benthams are Bobby, Jack and Will. They have a song called "Jeremy Bentham", (the father of English utilitarianism who had his head pickled, for posterity) and a dedication to John and Karen Bentham who "put up with us".
www.myspace.com/outl4wtv
|
