Hard Skin - On The Balls / Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear
- Written by Jono Coote
Despite what seems to be changes for the better in recent years, the area of the South East surrounding Hastings never offered much in the way of gigs for me when growing up as a punk music-obsessed teenager. Instead, grabbing some train beers and jumping on the train to Brighton was the usual order of the day, where Buz ran (and still runs) the Punker Bunker record store and booked many of the bands I wouldn’t otherwise have got to see.
Plenty of these nights have faded into the blurrier recesses of my memory, but a couple that stand out as having been good, dirty, wasted fun were the ones where Hard Skin supplied the soundtrack. These nights were few and far between, and their musical output over the years has been similarly sparse, but both on stage and in the studio they have never failed to leave me with a smile on my face and a beer in my hand.
Their new record On The Balls charges forward with the same tongue in cheek, anthemic street punk approach which the band has made their own over the past few years – catchy, raucous and full of lines which will catch you unawares and make you spit beer in your neighbour’s face laughing. Songs like ‘Crack On Have A Booze’, ‘Sausage Man’, ‘The Man Who Ran The Town’ and ‘That’s Bollocks Mate’ defy you not to be singing along for days afterwards, which could become a problem if you’re a sales assistant, or a primary school teacher.
Closing with ‘Gipsy Hill’, an ode to the band’s stomping ground which almost feels like a ballad in comparison to the rest of the album, this is mandatory if you have any interest in street punk and Oi! Music. If that merely whets your appetite for more expletive ridden punk gems you’re in luck, because a second album released alongside On The Balls, and titled Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear, consists of the songs from the first album but with a plethora of women active in the punk scene alongside some surprising guest spots from the wider musical world. Musically identical, the gender shift in vocals gives the song’s an entirely fresh sound – making both albums a worthwhile purchase.
Highlights include ‘The Man Who Ran the Town’ with Joanna Newsom, Manda Rin (of Scottish indie group Bis) adding a furious Glasgow shout to ‘Crack On Have A Booze’, and Alela Diane sounding to be thoroughly enjoying her vocal duties on ‘Two Bob Cunt’. I can’t help but hope I’ll get the chance to do the same when shouting along in a live environment in the near future.
On The Balls and Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear are both out now and available on iTunes.