Booze & Glory – As Bold As Brass

Booze & Boring

It is a truth universally acknowledged that spring is the perfect season for upbeat punk music, and Oi! skinhead influenced punk band Booze & Glory are hoping to cash in on this fact by releasing As Bold as Brass, an unfortunately rather cliché take on a genre that has been beaten into the ground. Oi! is a simple, straight forward style of punk that has existed since before the Sex Pistols ever strapped on a guitar, and after 40 years it has become pretty well-worn territory, so it’s easy for bands attempting this style to all blend together if there’s nothing unique to stand out about them, as seems to be the case with this record.

As Bold as Brass opens with “Off We Go!,” a standard sing-along “anthem” about being a punk band which sets the tone for the rest of the record. If you feel like you’ve heard this song before, you probably have from a slew of other bands– and that feeling doesn’t go away. Ten songs later, you’ve reached “Cock & Bull Story” and it barely sounds like you’ve heard more than just the same mediocre song on repeat. Even their attempt at an acoustic bonus track, “Always on the Wrong Side,” sounds trite and ripped straight from that bad pub band you’ve been avoiding for months.

Now, if you’re looking for something to blast when spring finally arrives and you’re driving with the windows down that you can sing and chant along with, As Bold as Brass definitely provides you that, but so do many other bands and in much more interesting ways. Booze & Glory is a rather apt name for a band so standard, predictable, and uninventive. They’re a band you might enjoy when hammered at a bar, but certainly not something to be remembered this year.