Goodbye Blue Monday are a band I am embarrassingly slow in getting into. The four piece from Edinburgh released their latest EP The Sickness, The Shame back in February last year on Make-That-A-Take Records and I've only just gotten around to checking it out. I'm almost a year too late on what is a fantastic EP that I loved immediately.
The three track EP begins with a song titled Fungus. A common theme in Goodbye Blue Monday's songs is the topic of mental health. On this opening song the band use fungus as a metaphor for your mental health issues spreading and getting worse. Musically they play melodic shout-a-long punk rock similar to that of Iron Chic and The Flatliners. I love this style of punk rock and Goodbye Blue Monday do it very well. The structure of the song and the melody hooks me in straight away and I quickly want to throw my fists up and scream along to the infectious chorus. Up next is Take Your Pills. What a song this is! Goodbye Blue Monday manage to take a topic of having to take pills to help with your mental health and turn it into a joyous occasion. I wish I had had this song when I was formerly on anti-depressants, it would have been my anthem. I used to absolutely hate having to take them but this song is great to help you realise that it is actually okay if you have to. Again it's a song that I want to shout my heart out to - Goodbye Blue Monday must be an incredible live act. The third and final song is the EP's title track The Sickness, The Shame. This song is just superb. Lyrically it's incredible, it's hugely relatable to anyone who has struggled with mental health issues. Seriously go and check out the lyrics to this song, there's every chance you'll read at least one and think "yeah that's me" or "that was me." Despite the sadness of the lyrics there is again an upbeat nature to the song, probably coming from the shout-a-long qualities pouring out of the song. This is one of those songs where you will get a great feeling of catharsis listening to it but especially from shouting it as loud as you can.
This three song EP is one of the best I've heard in long time. I wish I had given it a chance earlier as it would have placed really high on my end of year lists. It's got everything I want in my punk rock: it makes me smile, it's catchy enough for me to sing along to quickly, it has interesting melodies and it's about a relatable and really important subject that can never be spoken about enough. Goodbye Blue Monday seem to be a band that everyone needs to know about and soon will be the cream of not just the Scottish punk scene but the entire UK scene. I can't wait to catch them at Manchester Punk Festival in April. If you're going (why the hell wouldn't you be!?), make sure you do too!
Stream and download The Sickness, The Shame here: https://goodbye-blue-monday-1.bandcamp.com/album/the-sickness-the-shame
Like Goodbye Blue Monday here: https://www.facebook.com/GoodbyeBlueMondayTheGreatDepression/
This review was written by Colin Clark.
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