It would not be unfair to say that after thirteen years in business – and with all members having ‘previous’ before that – Goldblade now fall into the ‘veteran’ category. That’s on paper, anyway. For those who have witnessed frontman John Robb in the flesh will surely attest that the man is getting younger. He is the punk Dorian Gray, and Goldblade’s fifth studio album is all the better for it. In fact, Robb is living proof that if you want to stay spry and vital, then salvation is not to be found in skin creams, Evian and caffeine enemas, when thirty years of late night sermonising in the sweat-pits of the world will do the trick.
After 2005’s relatively standard Rebel Songs, Goldblade has veered in a new direction best described as piratical-punk. Like a bunch of swarthy sea dogs waving their rusty cutlasses in your face while ripping the pearls from your neck, ‘Mutiny’ is a full-frontal, attack of boorish nautical punk songs delivered at maximum velocity. Think a less posh, bench-pressing 21st century Tenpole Tudor if it helps.
The quintet’s sense of fun and occasion is just about infectious enough to convince you to ditch your job and take to the high seas as eagle’s nest-dwelling bosun on the good ship HMS Goldblade. It’s something that’s woefully missing from so many of punk’s young careerists. It certainly must be tough for teenagers today to see Top Shop selling their image back to them – but not as tough as seeing men twice their age having twice as much fun in the name of punk.
Elsewhere all the usual Goldblade motifs are in place – the visceral excitement of a riot (‘Riot Squad For Toxic City FC’, the Rancid-esque ‘Riot! Riot!’), a smattering of politics (‘Do The Neo Con’), the need for a youth revolt (every bleeding song).
Perhaps the best is saved until last – an unlisted acoustic version of the album’s title track, in which Goldblade drop the aggro-level and deliver a genuine sea-shanty, in which Blackpool-born Robb boasts of being “Seaside born and seaside bred / Strong in the arm and strong in the ‘ead”.
Goldblade then: as daft as five brushes with haircuts to match.
But much fun too – always.
