Every city in this country has its ‘thing’. Some geographical locations even manage to incorporate the sound and the style their name (think Madchester). The city of Liverpool and pop music go hand in hand. Everyone in the world knows Merseybeat, but this town has also contributed a whole plethora of new wave and post-punk bands. The High Rip, are another addition to the list of great bands from the North West. This is a band that is very much rooted in post-punk but not fixed into it.
‘Best Holiday’ kicks things off proficiently, with incredible rhythmic precision and dexterity. Guitars and basses tap gracefully around the tight drums. Every note carefully sited beside a hi-hat or two. Vocalist Ivan Clare unfastens with the most curious line. He states ‘holidays in cottages, with people that, I hope you’ll never meet’. The Rip invite into their world, but it comes with a warning.
‘Vampire’ is an altogether different affair. A super angular or ‘math-y’ rhythm gets us dancing in our best Gang of Four clobber. The super sharp verses drop as the chorus nosedives in 90s, dare I say it, grunge territory. ‘Vampire’ loosely ties both the 90s and 80s together, it does so in the silhouette of every pre-CGI horror movie.
‘The System Doesn’t Work’ is sugar coated atomic device. An explosive song, fused with angst and desperation. A tune layered with public sentiment or a resonance to all those who felt left out and crushed under the powers that be. The song holds nothing back, it smashes your speakers like a brick through glass. In this tune we get to hear guitarist Graham Haywood’s T-Rex meets Johnny Marr riffage crawl all over the rocky drum beats provided by drummer Jo ‘Twoey’ Quinn. Twoey provides a cool shuffle like rhythm; her snare and kick provide plenty of space for Paul Bowsley’s incredible meticulous basslines. Bowsley glides through every rhythmic strike and frontman Clare blends flamboyance and gaudiness with grit and vigour. One can hear Clare’s honesty through the speakers, his lyrics back up his sincerity.
‘You Still Believe’ is perhaps the punkiest track on this record. It steamrolls through like a Ruts tune. This song proves that The High Rip are more than capable of bringing it on and taking no prisoners. ‘Have You Ever Been Abandoned’ is an different thing altogether. The Rip dig out their best Kinks/Doors and take us back to the late 1960’s albeit in an ironic take.
‘The Poor Pay More’, like ‘The System Doesn’t Work’, proves to the world that this four piece know how to speak to the people. Not many can inspire the masses and write great pop tunes, with hooks and riffs that work. It’s not often that you come across a band with great song writing skills and technical dexterity. Indeed The High Rip are incredibly talented and they all, thankfully, own museum sized record collections in their own creative consciousnesses.
This is a record that sits perfectly between The Damned and Echo & The Bunnymen, The Adverts and Gang of Four. This is a record everyone needs to listen to, so please go and check out Rule of Four.
Words: Lewis Elliot McWilliam, Images: Band Media, Adrian Wharton, RBY
Album (Pre-Order from 9x9 Records): https://www.9x9records.co.uk/the-high-rip-rule-of-four
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehighrip