This is billed as punk but it’s somewhere between indie — proper early indie, when it was an approach and not a genre — and rock.

If they could be accused of lacking the genuine feel it’s because they can play their instruments far too well (“The Damned can play three chords, The Adverts can play one, hear all four at …” ran one famous tour poster; Stoke was on that tour, we seem to remember).

Opener Lilac is a jazzed-up take on bands like Kleenex, seminal indie punks from Switzerland; the percussive thud and the urgent vocals are there but there’s also some proper music, too.

Make A Man is an entertaining tune — the man is to be made in explicit terms, and it’s not by teaching him carpentry — while Strangers is more melodic, more Blondie than anything (another band that claimed to be punk but were pop) with a cleaner drum sound and even a guitar solo (there’s still Kleenex there in the background).  Body opens with a heavy Nine Inch Nails feel but turns into melodic bass-heavy power pop.

Overall: pretty good and a reminder of what proper indie music was like. They’re full of energy and even the more pop-punk tunes have a raw edge to them.

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