The Vibrators: Punk Mania – Back To The Roots

The punk veterans make their sneery, sarky return.

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These indefatigable graduates of the class of ’77 won’t go hungry any time soon, but listening to this clutch of new recordings, it’s heartening to know that they’re not content just to churn out pub rock and rely on their regular US live tours to keep their reputation alive.

We know this from the moment Retard revs into life, and informs us, ‘I like drugs and drinking booze/Never watch the stupid news… ’cos I’m a retard.’

Such lines could be written by a 10-year-old, but the withering sarcasm wins through, and the pH levels are even more acidic on Bleed To Death: ‘I like the way you’re always buying new clothes, I like the way you put powder up your nose… but most of all I like the way you bleed to death.’

Ooh, you are awful. But we still like you./o:p

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.