You’re not supposed to write reviews in the first person. Don’t use “I” or “Me” or “One”.
But this LP is about or at least loosely based on the old big maroon folder anyone that was at Secondary School from the ages of 14-16 in the 1990s, up until the early 2000’s had to update with vital statistics and personal statements and other such wank that the Department of Education deemed necessary.
The National Record Of Achievement. What a thoroughly pointless fucking exercise that was. Until now.
Let’s ignore the album of eleven songs we’re here to discuss for the moment. Let’s instead have a look at MY National Record Of Achievement. I have my original folder, gifted to me in about 1995 to document all my wondrous “achievements” over the next little bit of academic time, so I could pass it on to my 6th Form College, University, future employers.
Except, as the opening track attests, not a single fucker ever even glanced inside its faux leather-bound cover.
As Wikipedia states “It was hoped that pupils would continue to add to their Records after leaving school. In practice, the National Record of Achievement failed to meet these aspirations. In the mid-1990s it was common to use them for further education admissions, for instance to sixth form college, but university admissions tutors never found them relevant. Neither further nor higher education institutions encouraged students to continue to update them”. It was a monumental waste of everyone’s endeavour and precious time.
It serves as a time capsule of my massive underachievement. The tea mug rings on the front is a testament to the disdain it has been shown over the past three decades. It’s a bit bendy, it’s been damp, the pages are stained. They were already the same colour as an ancient parchment, as if they already knew they were destined for the back of a wardrobe where absolutely no-one would give a shit about it for the rest of recorded time.
Apart from these wee scamps from Glasgow. National Record Of Achievement is their second LP, their debut Slime City Death Club came out in 2023 apparently but it feels so much longer ago. I’d have said 2022. After deciding they couldn’t possibly be in a band with anyone not called Michael; Michael, Michael and Michael disbanded We are the Physics and went off as a three piece (possibly not an accurate retelling of history) and no offence to the other guy, Slime City are much better. (This is definitely true)
Concentrating on why the relentless march of time from fun adolescence and our teenage years in the best decade ever, to the dystopian hellscape we currently reside in trying to navigating our forties, whilst pretending we are in fact still teenagers, Michael, Michael and Michael (but not shoe this time) have forsaken why using a cable for your internet needs is superior, why wearing a band t-shirt you’ve never heard a note from isn’t necessarily a bad thing and why their home town isn’t the most tolerant or integrated of cities, to discussing how recording three minutes of punk pop costs several thousand grands, how social media has turned your fathers into racist, red faced snowflakes, and why the most famous painting in the world is, in fact, crap.
What Slime City do perfectly is fundamentally bring a big fat fucking grin to your face. Everything has an element of being wry and knowing, whilst also addressing important issues. Lyrics in ‘You Do The Math(s)’ discusses mental health and overwhelming feelings of confusion and anxiety. ‘Trigger The Dads’ whilst being a funny side swipe at those brain washed into believing right wing propaganda about immigrants and boats and the woke brigade coming to cancel everyone, the fact the rise of the right is so very prominent and pervasive is quite terrifying.
But on the plus side, it rocks like a big hairy leather clad bearded metal fan with unwashed hair and dirt under their fingernails as they give you the devil horns.
The style and tempo of the new LP is slightly different to the first album. NOT BY MUCH. (Yes i wrote that sentence just to make that joke).
In fact it’s basically exactly the same, but you wouldn’t want Slime City to sound any different. What they’ve done here is add to their repertoire so their gigs are longer and have more brilliant pop songs to yell back at them so loud you’ll puke you’re overpriced warm beer over the person in front of you.
They are purveyors of the biggest hooks this side of Peter Pan’s nemesis, that they like to repeat until you’re singing them to yourself and everyone else in the office, work kitchen, urinals, cashier at Waitrose…Asda, i meant Asda. You will be singing “thank you for the zero, point zero, zero zero, zero one pence” to your cats from ‘This Song Costs £2000″. Also, shouting “this is the second verse, slightly different from the first verse, NOT BY MUCH” on ‘You Do The Math(s)’. (Do you get the earlier joke now?). Or “Honest, Doctor, NINE, ELEVEN” at a twat hanging a flag from a lamp post.
The melodies sound so familiar that you must have heard it on Radio X or Absolute or maybe BBC 6Music. And you have, because there are only so many chords and notes and ways to string them together that doesn’t sound shit. Then you have to have a good counter melodies, aforementioned hooks, guitar riffs, bass flourishes, drum beats, well written lyrics about never stopping, never stopping giving up. Because sometimes it’s just not for you. Not these chaps though.
I could sit here a waffle on about the intricacies of a guitar tone, or the minutiae of a Michael lyric. Sure. But really you just need to listen to it. Play it a lot before you get inundated by Christmas songs too early and get Whammed or whatever it is before 1st December.
It’s really fucking good.
