It’s unquestionable that western society is in a steady decline, but most can’t put a pinpoint on where exactly it all started to go wrong. Was it the advent of smart phones, where self-obsession is paramount and young people’s attention spans and ability to live in the moment are severely reduced? You’ll have to go back a bit further than that. Was it the proliferation of reality TV that made us slavishly obsess over the lives of others, especially if that individual happened to be a celebrity? Close, but no cigar. I personally feel the epicentre of civilisation’s acceleration towards its nadir was the 1987 release of Operation Ivy’s ‘Energy’ – in itself not a bad record, but like the first plague-infected rat paddling down the Thames, it kick-started undoubtedly the worst musical genre ever to pollute our collective ears – ska-punk.
In this genre, suburban white boys are allowed to display the worst imaginable reggae-fawning traits firmly on their sleeves. In this godforsaken realm of music, said “trustafarians” take two-tone fashions and explode a gaudy Orange County bad taste bomb all over it. In this obstreperous stain on the fine name of “punk rock”, jocks cottoned onto the idea that they could bag the “weird chicks” whose “fag” friends they dicked all over in school if they picked up that dusty ol’ trumpet and donned a pork-pie hat and a horrendous loud shirt. Of these heinous sins and myriads more besides ska-punk is guilty, yet rather than take the individuals involved to account and thrust them before punk version of the Court Of Human Rights for crimes against decency, bands like Mustard Plug are permitted to roam free and release their eighth(!) full-length, ’Can’t Contain It’.
The material on display here, it’s not bad. “Bad” would be a term of kindness to describe this tantamount to me getting down on my knees and fellating all six of Mustard Plug’s members in turn. It’s so bad that you’ll want to set fire to yourself halfway through the first song, just to make it stop. It’s so mind-numbingly terrible that having your face devoured by rabid pitbulls will feel like two weeks on a beach in the Bahamas in comparison. It’s so sickeningly dreadful that you’ll happily watch ‘Sex Lives Of The Potato Men’ on repeat whilst being smashed in the face by a breezeblock rather than experience another second of this agonising, abhorrent aural fecal matter.
Perhaps the worst thing of all to find out about this album is that this is the band’s first record in 7 years, paid for by their fans on Kickstarter. Not only do people hate themselves enough that they’ll willingly listen to Mustard Plug, they’ll actively offer their money to enable them to continue making “music”. There was me thinking the extent of self-loathing fell no further than Stoke City supporters. It’s nigh-on impossible to extract particular lowlights from the fourteen tracks on ’Can’t Contain It’ as the pain induced by identical obnoxious blaring brass, tedious vocals and prosaic tempos that have been a standard of this scene since the 90s is invariable throughout – a constant stream of a checkered Vans slip-on emerging from the speakers and repeatedly kicking you in your sexual organs from beginning to end.
Just when you begin to hold some semblance of hope for the future of humanity, the concept is cruelly ripped from you when you come to the realisation that there are people (lots and lots of people) who regularly listen to Mustard Plug and bands of their ilk, who allow and encourage the continued existence of this band and others like them, who flail their legs around when Less Than Jake or Reel Big Fish are played at local rock nights, and equate music being “fun” with actually possessing some microscopic similitude to artistic achievement. I’m no card-carrying member of the No Fun Club, but I’d honestly draw more enjoyment from pouring sulphuric acid into my eyes than having to endure the theme music of the most unbearable “whacky” pricks on the planet for any longer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to take several showers to wash the smell of ’Can’t Contain It’ off myself. Next time, Mustard Plug, try harder to “contain it”; put it in a crate made entirely of lutetium (the hardest metal on earth – yep, even harder than Hatebreed) and force it to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. That way, nobody will ever have to hear this unbearable nonsense again for all eternity, and they all lived happily ever after.
0/5
‘Can’t Contain It’ by Mustard Plug is out now on No Idea Records.
Mustard Plug links: Website|Twitter|Facebook
Words by Ollie Connors (@olliexcore)
