"This is probably the most original record you’ll hear all year." That’s what the NME said about the first Long Decline single I’m A Jew and just maybe that also applies to this the first Long Decline album.
The Long Decline consists of Kenny Wisdom (singer-lyricist songwriter and some of the worst guitar you’ve ever heard on Like A Blind Man) Vic Godard (of Subway Sect guitar) Mark Perry (of Alternative TV/Sniffin’ Glue fame drums) Rob Ugly (bass and mandolin) Andy Gwatkin (violin) and Luci Bocchino (mandolin and guitar). Both Mark and Luci contributed in the songwriting department as did Vic Godard who wrote the quirky calypso-like The Island.
Despite the presence of Mark and Vic this is not some punk supergroup reliving past glories (though if you want to talk about punk rock as an attitude as being about honesty and not compromising then The Long Decline are right up there). The mandolins and violins give these songs an Eastern European feel with a bit of bluegrass mixed in for good measure.
As Record Collector said of their recent single Buckle Up And Join In Lad it “sounds like the live entertainment in a pre-war Russian Gulag”. The Jewish Chronicle declared “few punk bands ever released anything as in-your-face as The Long Decline’s I’m A Jew”.
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