Holiday

Holiday [7-inch] (2013)

Rich Cocksedge

Holiday are a melodic punk four-piece from Manchester, UK. The band include former members of The Great St. Louis and Grover, which was enough to get me curious about this 7-inch given how good those bands were, as was the description that they write "happy songs about unhappy things." In fact, that is as spot on as you can get in trying to find the briefest way possible of giving an introduction to Holiday, a band who have a distinct UK melodic/pop-punk sound.

The whole "happy songs about unhappy things" is aided and perfectly abetted by having a vocalist who has a caustic Lancastrian accent that reminds me a bit of listening to the punk poet John Cooper Clarke, whose famous rants are always accentuated by his regional inflection.

All four tracks have a spirited feel to them and a sense of boundless energy conveyed through a buzzsaw guitars and a rhythm section that knows how to make an impact without knocking seven bells out the bass and drum kit. This offsets the topics to be found which include the deployment of ground to air missiles in residential areas of London during the 2012 Olympics in case of terrorist threats and the anxiety that one can feel from seeing people going about the ordinary tasks of life when such occurrences are beyond one's capabilities. Holiday do a pretty good job of putting a spring in my step whilst making me stop and take in the lyrics which are clearly at odds with the soundtrack in which they're delivered, yet I feel that the vitality of the release wins out.

If you're too tight to buy this then it is available as 'Buy Now - name your price' on Bandcamp.