Earlier this year I attended the second Manchester Punk Festival. One of the bands that really stood out to me was Revenge Of The Psychotronic Man – they were quite incredible. Playing fast, angry, shouty thrash punk music they blew me away. In July the three piece release a brand new seventeen track album named Colossal Velocity, on the brilliant TNS Records. I was beyond excited to check it out.
The thing that really struck me about Revenge when I saw them life was the ferociousness with which they played. I wondered how well this would transfer to recordings. I always love watching hard-sounding bands live, the energy that comes off the stage makes me think "gosh I love this band". But when I listen to them recorded I often feel like the energy and passion that made me love the band has gone. I'm over the moon to report that this isn't the case on Colossal Velocity. From the opening track To Be Frank to the final song Rrose Sélavy (To Make A Toast To Life), it's a constant barrage of brilliant punk rock music hitting you smack in the face. Musically it's fast and aggressive, drums and guitars are played at a rapid pace and co-vocalists Andy and Matt barely pause for breath as they belt out the lyrics. Like I said, it's fast and aggressive but at no point is it anything other than great fun. Something else the band have managed to do fantastically on the record is capture the anarchy of a Revenge set. Throughout Colossal Velocity all I want to do is throw my body around with pure anarchic joy.
As I mentioned before Revenge Of The Psychotronic Man are a band with two lead vocalists. This works well for the band for a number of reasons. Firstly, because both sing so quickly that they probably need some time to catch their breath after a while. Secondly, it gives that feeling of inclusion you get from multiple vocalists. If everyone on stage is singing then that encourages the crowd to sing and feel more like part of the show. Punk rock is about community and bringing people together so this works brilliantly for me. Playing these songs must be absolutely exhausting along with taking a great amount of skill. No second is wasted as the band power through the songs as quickly as any good pop punk band. The songs are short, the longest being only one minute and forty seconds long so the album flies by. When I first saw that the album has seventeen songs on it I immediately thought that there may be some filler. This was in no way the case. I think this is due to the short, fast, punch in the face nature of the songs.
I consciously have taken a different approach to reviewing this album. Regular readers will know that I normally write about each song when I review an album but I decided not to on Colossal Velocity. This is due to the speed which every song is played. They all blend wonderfully into one another if I'm playing the album in order or if it's shuffled. Colossal Velocity is an album that Revenge Of The Pyschotronic Man can be very proud of. The band have been going for a while now and have become cult heroes in the punk scene, especially in Manchester. This could be the album that puts them among the heavyweights of the UK punk scene.
Pre-order the album here: https://tnsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/colossal-velocity
Like Revenge Of The Physchotronic Man here: https://www.facebook.com/RevengeofthePsychotronicMan
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