The Bury St. Edmunds (UK) ska-punk act Luvdump are back with their first full length, Age Of Austerity.

The band's sound can be described as crack rock steady-influenced, and incorporating elements of hardcore, dub and ska. A clear distinction can be made between the reverberant clean upstrokes, with heavy bass presence, which contrast with the thicker, faster, fuzzier moments, themselves often accompanied by d-beat-style drum patterns and layered with additional octave-based guitar parts. The production quality is also good, slicker than 2010's EP Information Is Power.

The vocals aren't always easy to make out during the faster parts, but with song titles like "Burn The Banks" and "No Borders," you can't go amiss, and many of the themes you might expect are present: "destroy / destroy / we'll burn the banks", "fuck the law", "religion ain't got shit", etc. Several tracks even display somewhat anthemic choruses, for instance "Cutting Class" ("No justice! No peace! / Fuck the bankers! And fuck the police!) or "Farm The Land" ("No God is our master, no leader our own / We can farm this land as this Earth is our home"), which also has a nice phaser intro, by the way.

On the last song before the outro, "Some Day," we get a glimpse of a more hopeful future ("Some day we can live in peace / Some day we can learn to live together in this world / We'll find another way / We'll find a better way"), in contrast with, say, Choking Victim's "better way" (that would be "suicide").
As a side note, I also noticed two spoken quotes: "Travel" cites the Blues Brothers, while "Burn The Banks" cites what I identified as the Muppet Christmas Carol.

Anyway, if you like crack rock steady, or the more hardcore-influenced brands of ska punk, you should probably check this out. Props to Luvdump for a solid release.

Check it out here