The Partisans
Anarchy In Alcatraz / No Future Demos 80 – 82
Sealed Records
It’s easy to know 40 years later how relevant something really was when the needle hits the record and you are brought back in a time capsule.
The Partisans were a punk band that formed in Wales around 79/80 and this is a collection of demos recorded at the time. It’s straight forward punk rock. 4/4 beat, driving bass line and verse chorus, verse chorus format. Each song meant something to the 17yr olds in the band and to teenagers listening everywhere. Songs about police oppression, statements about not joining the army as a solider. Songs about being anti queen and there main statement was about not giving a fuck.
Of course it wasn’t a band not caring, it was a group if people who did care but weren’t too bothered what you thought about their statements. They wanted you on a demo with them, they wanted music to be an expression and that’s what these songs are.
The opening side is mainly cover versions. It’s them putting together their own compilation and it shows the bands influences that were worn on their leather jackets. UK Subs, Sex Pistols and Stiff Little Fingers all get the Partisan treatment. There still is a freshness to it all 4 decades later, youthful exuberance and a belief that they could change this world.
I loved the Partisans for about 6 months. I listened to their first album pretty much on a daily basis. Them and Blitz spoke to me as people in working class areas who did start their own bands. All they needed was three chords and the truth.
Sealed records have captured it all brilliantly here, booklet and all with some interviews of the time. For a while I was a young teenager getting my bass guitar and getting ready to change the world.
Brilliant
niallhope
