Album Review: Nuking Candyland by Fast Food Society

Fast Food Society are a five piece band from Palma, Spain. (I believe this makes them the first Spanish band featured on CPRW). The band describe themselves as anti-globalist, pro-feminist, pre-anarchist punk rock. According to their Bandcamp tags they play melodic hardcore political punk rock music. Back in July they released a brand new EP named Nuking Candyland on Disconnect Disconnect Records in the UK as well as a whole host of labels all over Europe. Anything with Disconnect Disconnect involved is always gold so I was looking forward to checking this out.

The EP starts out with the song Hijacking Hijab. Beginning with an audio clip cut together with some sad sounding guitar and drum parts before the song really gets going. Things pick up and the song bursts into life with some exquisite guitar work that really got me pumped up. When the vocals hit I'm immediately pulled into the song. They are fast paced and have me wanting to throw my fists up in support of the band. Hijacking Hijab is about realising that it's not a nation or religion that commits the terrible atrocities that happen in the world and more so a select group of people. Next up is L'Abattoir. This is a one minute long hardcore song that's pro vegetarian. I absolutely loved this song, definitely one of the best hardcore songs I've heard in a long long time. In its short duration it begins, starts a massive musical storm, gets its message across and finishes without any fuss. Great stuff. The third track is named Invincible By Default and sees the band return to their skate punk sound. What a great song this is! The song is about the upper class privileged members of society who are oblivious to the struggles of the people who they believe are lower class than them. The song has so much energy in it that it's impossible not to get passionate about the track's message. Fast Food Society have some fun on the song as well, changing up the skate punk and playing a reggae verse with a reworked version of Ace Of Base's All That She Wants. Maybe one of the songs of the year!

Last Words looks at the problem of institutional racism. As you can probably imagine given the topic of the song it's extremely hard hitting, musically and vocally. There is a punchy quality to the vocals that makes sure every word hits home with the listener. This is very important to the song. There are some also some fantastic vocal harmonies that accompany the chorus that add a community feel to the song, making the listener feel that they are not alone. There are some audio clips sliced into the song addressing times when institutionalised racism has taken place. A very powerful song. The penultimate song on Nuking Candyland is named Enemies Of Reason. The guitar intro straight away made me think of Bad Religion and as the song got going so did the vocals. I loved this, Bad Religion are ace. Enemies Of Reason is a song that questions people's belief in religion, no matter which one it is - I'm certain that it's no coincidence the Fast Food Society have gone for a Bad Religion sound for a song about this subject. Finally we have the song The Unfortunate Origin Of A Rather Familiar Family Game. This is a bit of a bonus track on the EP. So I won't say too much about it, so I won't ruin the surprise. It's awfully surprising though and awfully fun!

What an incredible release Nuking Candyland is! It's hard hitting skate punk that will inspire and educate you in equal measure. Sometimes I feel like some bands try to write political songs for the sake of writing a political song and they don't really mean anything. This really isn't the case here. Each song, including the bonus song, really hits home and makes you think along with just being absolute punk rock gems. If you like your punk political then Nuking Candyland is an EP you must check out!

Stream and download Nuking Candyland here: https://disconnectdisconnectrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nuking-candyland

Like Fast Food Society here: https://www.facebook.com/fastfoodsociety

This review was written by Colin Clark.