Matilda’s Scoundrels have been causing a bit of a ruckus on
the south coast punk scene over the last few months, and their first recorded
offering, Beasts in Disguise, had a suitably chaotic launch night in Hastings
last Saturday. The EP itself is 4 tracks long, and is an excellent overview of
what the band is all about, minus gratuitous nudity and the face full of beer you
would usually find at their gigs (but how you listen to it at home is up to
you).
Opening with Beasts in Disguise, one of the more folky
tracks, where we get blasts of acoustic guitar, accordion and mandolin, before
heading into Feed the Machine, a song that has been stuck in my head for a few
days since I last heard the finished track. It’s reminiscent of Bootscraper for
me, absolutely by no means a bad thing. It’s a track that builds as it
progresses like a runaway train. The 3rd track, Our Wake, introduces
the tin whistle into the mix, which if you’re anywhere near Jason, is much
nicer to hear on the EP rather than when he’s playing the music from Lord of
the Rings on an early morning festival campsite. This track reminds me of
Dropkick Murphys with the mix of the whistle, mandolin and accordion. It’s the
slowest track on this EP but for me one of the band’s strongest. The final
track, Folk Shit Up, has (I think) finally escaped the shackles in my brain
when it was about crabs. It’s the noisiest track on the EP and probably my
favourite. For me everything about this track is what a song should be. Less
than 3 minutes long, shouty vocals and all you want to do when you hear it is
throw yourself around in a sweaty gig venue.
Job well done boys! You can find the EP on https://matildasscoundrels.bandcamp.com/
where you can either stream or download for whatever price you want. So what
are you waiting for?