Album: Dischord – The Wakes

Caroline Fisher meets Discord, Blackpool’s newest Punk Band to discuss their debut album ‘The Wakes’.

With Zowie on bass, her husband Dave playing guitar and Chris taking care of both the vocals and the drums, this is quite unusual set up and as it’s not so easy to juggle both heavy beats with exuberant singing, Craig (of Terror-nation) joins them as their drummer for live performances.

Dischord formed in the run up to the closure and demolition of the iconic Tache Rock club. To celebrate its last night, they recorded a ‘Your Father’s Moustache’ EP, 100 copies of which were given away on the door. Inspired by The Gallows song, ‘Blackpool is the reason’ (town name changed for each place the song is performed) the band came together with a view to creating their own punk inspired sound and also to revive the album booklet that vinyl fans loved so well.

With 12 tracks in all The Wakes was a very pleasant surprise, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this young band but what I got was a perfect mix of old and new punk influences without sounding like what can sometimes be described as just “generic punk noise”. Compared to some to bands such as The Gallows, AFI, Anti Flag and Subhumans, ‘Seaside Suicide’ in particular reminded me of Rudimentary Peni.

Seaside Suicide is self explanatory really, a song about Blackpool and the ups and in particular the downs of living here, although on a lighter note, the band has since acquired a greater appreciation of their home town as a result of working together on the album. Music Is Dead shows the bands disappointment with the ‘anyone can be a star’ culture in modern music especially with the popularity of reality star discovery TV programmes.

The title track, The Wakes, is named after the Wakes holidays, which were traditionally occasions where entire towns would close down completely so that the mill and factory workers could migrate to the seaside for respite from the humdrum routine of working in a job which gave little financial recompense or stimulation. As this is a sentiment many can still relate to today, The Wakes manages to express what many of us presently feel both towards our environment and society itself. All this is intelligently brought together with an excellent combination of upbeat tempos with softer tracks to stop the album from melding into one and remaining interesting right until the very end.

Personally I think this is a band that would be very interesting to hear live, unfortunately I missed their Rebellion Weekend Album launch showcase at The Blue Room but I’m more than convinced that this is a band we’ll be seeing much more of on the Blackpool gig circuit and most certainly worth keeping a beady eye on!

The band is currently working on creating videos for some of the other album tracks so if you fancy getting involved please feel free to contact them via the links below.

For more information or to keep up to date with Dischord you can visit www.musicisdead.co.uk, like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter: @dischorduk. You can also listen to their music online at www.reverbnation.com/dischordUK.