Rats From a Sinking Ship

Rats From a Sinking Ship – Now Rat’s What I Call Music – review

When Rats From a Sinking Ship announced they were no more in March 2021, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that read their post with a sense of disappointment. With five albums and 2 EPs under their belts, they have an impressive back catalogue, so when the band started posting teasers such as images with the legend “Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For?” the appetite was whetted for whatever was going to come…

The resultant release is a career spanning retrospective of tracks from across their fine array of albums from Rise as One in 2015 through to Glamorous Terrorists in 2020.… Read the rest

RFASS With Love and Violence

Rats from a Sinking Ship – With Love and Violence EP

“…with loves, and hates, and passions just like mine…”

Rats from a Sinking Ship have unleashed their new 7” EP and the words I have taken “on loan” from The Smiths Cemetry Gates sum it up perfectly. Rats have a passion for a cause that shines through on the somewhat confrontational songs on this EP. “I am a pacifist, don’t take that as a sign of weakness”. Lusty makes his point clear on lead track, he won’t mince his words.

The 4-track EP is titled “With Love and Violence” handing out equal degrees of each to the pro- and antagonists in the songs in question.… Read the rest

Rats From a Sinking Ship album launch

Rats From a Sinking Ship – Fight the Future live launch review – The Hug and Pint

Rats from a sinking ship – Gig time again

It was exactly a month since I was last at a gig (far too long!). More than that, the last gig wasn’t great from a personal perspective. I needed to have a good gig from Rats From a Sinking Ship tonight to rectify that.

I had great expectations for tonight’s gig and I was not to be disappointed.
The Hug and Pint was a great wee venue too; small, dark, sweaty and intimate. This sort of place is far more preferable to me that the enormous soulless venues like the Hydro, more often than not attracting soulless bands to play them.… Read the rest

Rats From a Sinking Ship - Fight the Future

Rats From a Sinking Ship – Fight the Future – Album review

Fight the Future

Rats From a Sinking Ship release “Fight the Future”, their 3rd album, on 17th March with a launch gig in Glasgow at the Hug and Pint. Ably supported by The Fuck Ups and The Chibmarks along with some punk poetry from Mark McG.

If you are already a fan of the band, you will be familiar with the sound and stance. You won’t be disappointed with either on this storming new album. If you’ve not heard them before, where have you been? It is about time you rectified that.

Vitriolic inspiration

The way of the world at the moment has given Alex Lusty plenty of material on which to base his vitriol on this new album.Read the rest

Rats from a Sinking Ship logo

Alex Lusty – Rats From a Sinking Ship/Happy Martyr/Frigid Vinegar – Interview

Alex Lusty

On the eve of a new album (number 3) from Anarcho/Rap punk outfit with a social conscience, Rats From a Sinking Ship, and forthcoming tour dates, I caught up with main man Alex Lusty.

The new Rats From a Sinking Ship album is his main project just now having been in the studio recording at the start of the year and now mastering. Over the years, man of many talents Alex has been involved in a variety of bands and projects covering a range of music styles. I was interested to find out how he manages his time on these various and how he comes to write in a variety of styles for the different outlets of his artistry.… Read the rest

Lusty – If We Can’t Live Together, Then We Die Together – album review

The follow up to I’m Gonna Make Your Death All About Me from rapper and former Happy Martyr and Rats From a Sinking Ship frontman Alex Lusty is another sombre affair, with thirteen new songs (purposefully unlucky?), which are once again raw and emotional, soul baring, no holds barred songs about the human condition and an insight into the darker and more sorrowful sides of the human psyche. 

The mood of these songs swings between angry resignation, stark despair and brutal cynicism as Lusty sings his songs of life, death, love, loss, isolation and loneliness. The rawness of the songs and the vivid imagery in the lyrics suggest that many of the themes explored and the stories told come direct from personal experience. … Read the rest

Lusty – I’m Going To Make Your Death All About Me – album review

If you check in regularly with the the blog, you’ll be familiar with the music of Alex Lusty. The bequiffed tattooed rapper having appeared many times in his various guises on these pages. Most recently for the farewell from rap/rock/punk crossover band Rats From a Sinking ship, and in a variety of guises from Happy Martyr to Frigid Vinegar and Halfway People..

This solo outing from Lusty, while undoubtedly a Lusty release, is an emotional punch to the guts. Musically, a massive departure from Rats From A Sinking Ship. Stark and minimalistic, with heartbreakingly beautiful arrangements, reflecting the mood and the affecting and impactful nature of the album.… Read the rest

Review of the Year – 2022

If I don’t get my arse in gear, it’ll be February before I publish my round up of 2022. To be honest, I’ve still got a (virtual) pile of albums still to review… as a result, some of my favourite records of 2022 will be in the lists but remain unreviewed!

Singles of the Year

I already published my top 15 singles of the year (well actually I published a list of 80 songs…. but my top 15 were as follows:

  • 15 – Dumb Poets – Magic Happens
  • 14 – Dream Wife – Leech
  • 13 – Syvdoh – As I Lay Dying
  • 12 – The Bobby Lees – Monkey Mind
  • 11 – Collars – Baby I’m Bored
  • 10 – Keeley – Shadows on the Hill
  • 9 – His Lordship – All Cranked Up
  • 8 – Brontes – First Hand Arrogance
  • 7 – Jemma Freeman and the Cosmic Something Easy Peelers
  • 6 – Sacred Noise – Part of Me
  • 5 – Junk Pups – Miss Behave
  • 4 – Horsegirl – Anti Glory
  • 3 – Pizza Crunch – Wilting Youth
  • 2 – Water Machine – Hot Real Estate
  • 1 – Monica Queen – What is Home?
Read the rest

Singles Round up of the Year – 2022

I published 12 singles round ups for 2022, one per month (OK, so maybe some were slightly delayed…) which amount to a rough total of 350 – 400 songs in total. The fact that I featured the songs meant I liked all the songs in each list, so when I thought – I’ll do a Festive 50 like John Peel used to do, I failed miserably, so here is my Effervescent Eighty, first off, my top 15, then the rest in no particular order…

  1. Monica Queen – Where is Home?
  2. Water Machine -Hot Real Estate
  3. Pizza Crunch – Wilting Youth
  4. Horsegirl – Anti Glory
  5. Junk Pups – Miss Behave
  6. Sacred Noise – Part of Me
  7. Jemma Freeman and the Cosmic Something – Easy Peelers
  8. Brontes – First Hand Arrogance
  9. His Lordship – All Cranked Up
  10. Keeley – Shadows on the Hill
  11. Collars – Baby I’m Bored
  12. The Bobby Lees – Monkey Mind
  13. Syvdoh – As I Lay Dying
  14. Dream Wife -Leech
  15. Dumb Poets – Magic Happens

The rest (in no particular order)

  • Sloan Brothers – Songs Like This
  • Wife Guys of Reddit – Pig Fat
  • Dead Pony – Bullet Farm
  • Bikini Bottoms – The Game
  • Port Sulphur – Kone Trips
  • pMad – Broken
  • Gentle Sinners – Face to Fire (After Nyman)
  • Earl of Hell – Hang ’em High
  • The Kaplans – Get Inside It
  • Jill Lorean – Black Dog
  • Run into the Night – Common Stream of Consciousness
  • Panic Shack – Mannequin Man
  • Savage Cut – The Debt
  • Sister John – Young at Heart/The Bluebells – Glasgow is a Rainbow
  • Trashcan Sinatras – Lay of the Land
  • Bunkhouse – RIP ie
  • Katherine Aly – Hype Up
  • Tallies – Special
  • Spyres – Honestly
  • Butcher Boy – So Far So What
  • HiFi Sean and David McAlmont – The Skin I’m In
  • Dead Thatchers – Nae Pasaran
  • Jo Jo and the Teeth – Don’t Get Too Heavy
  • London Plane – Come Out of the Dark
  • bdrmm – Three
  • Marianne Dissard – When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful
  • The Best Bad Influence – Boomstick
  • Vulture Party – Bad Wolf Moon
  • The Courettes – Daydream
  • Deux Furieuses – Bring Down the Government
  • Cloth – Lucid
  • Simon Bromide – Not That Type
  • Scorpio Leisure – Give Us Our Space
  • The Claudettes – Exposure
  • Suede -15 Again
  • Pete Astor- Fine and Dandy
  • Girls in Synthesis – Watch with Mother
  • Lloyds House – Heather
  • Tina Sandwich – Fast Cars (and Movie Stars)
  • Simon Love – L.O.T.H.A.R.I.O.
Read the rest
Singles Round Up 2022 October

Singles Round Up Part 10 – October 2022

We’re well into the last quarter of the year now so it is time to share the third last selection of the best singles, demos and other tracks that have been earworms for The Ginger Quiff during the month of October… as usual I’ve added any that are on the evil corporate musician shafting platform that is Spotify for you to try, then go and buy music, merch and gig tickets from the bands.

Reaction – Bad Trip Express

Much like their forebears The Clash (just as long as we don’t get a Cut the Crap at some point), Lanarkshire punks Reaction have never been a band to stand still, rest on their laurels or become complacent with their sound.… Read the rest