DAMIDGE: Limitation (Self released 2016)

This four track EP is the missing link between the UK festival scene and the New York CBGBs scene of the early 1970s.

High energy grungy punk with chunky rhythms and guitar solos long enough to keep us closet rockers happy, but short enough to keep the three chord punk purists happy. Al Damidge’s vocals strut across the EP with a nonchalant swagger and if a voice could wear clothes, his would wear leather trousers and carry a flick knife.

Originally formed in 1987, they recoded the album ‘Fax of Life’ in 1994 at Foel Studios, North Wales. However the album was never released due to the band’s breakup after Prince and Seaweed left to play with the Ozrics on their US tour. That album was remastered and finally released in 2014 but this is the first collection of new recordings since the band reformed in 2013.

‘My Heart Bleeds’ is a tale of the despair of living in a city.

‘Kick and Scream’ asks what you are going to do when ‘they’ come for you; we get the impression that Damdige aint going to just take it – and neither is fellow traveller Chris Bowsher (RDF) who says a few words at the end.

‘White Nightmare White Flare’ is a tale of the destruction of the planet, be it from nuclear bombs, nuclear power or just the plain old materialism of the western world leading to global warming.

The closing track, ‘Ritten in Rehab’, states that you just can’t be happy when you are trying to drag yourself out of the depressive mire that put you in rehab in the first place.

All in all a call to arms. We might live in desperate times, but only we can pull ourselves up and out of the mire. And the kick ass rock and roll rhythm of Damidge is going to be part of the soundtrack as we kick over the statues.