Monktrump - Lethargy

Hear The Track Here

No one's flabber was ghasted more than mine when I discovered that the last Monktrump track I reviewed - Long Time (May 2006) - was really, really good. Believe me, as Mike Atkins aka MT can testify, we have very rarely seen eye to eye and that doesn't have much to do with either his music or his style. Most of my gripes have been about the material, and that may well be a personal choice. It's obvious he knows his chops, and delivers them with conviction but sometimes you need a lot more than that going on. My worst fear was that the improvement on the last track was down to his collaborator and that I'd have to go back to berating him again.

A nice slice of Pub Rock anyone?

For people who don't know of this musical phenomenon, it was a 1970's reaction to all the hippy dippy, arty farty music being put out by major artists of the time; a return to the roots if ya like. It should also be considered as a direct forerunner of punk because a lot of major punk names came from this circuit (The Damned, The Clash, virtually ALL of Stiff Records output and many more. All these bands specialised in guitar based rock played with life and energy. Much of Monktrump's output has those same connections at least in terms of garage band sound and tried and tested musical structures.

Lethargy doesn't, thank God, take it's title to heart and in fact will amplify the comments I've made above, a good time-y rock tune that requires little in the way of brainpower. I guess that's my way of saying that you would probably have to like the style and genre to really get anything out of this track, but there is enough of an audience for the various rock breeds it should do well. For my part I find myself comforted that I can't really pick too much fault with the track or the way it is presented, and - given its simplicity - there's enough to keep you occupied for it's three and a half minutes. Play it more than once or twice and it may even grow on you, it certainly did with me.

Classic rock revisited.