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November 2017




  

“First World Problems”
The Ramonas
CD Review By: Janet E. Hammer



Listening to this record reminds me of when I discovered new stuff as a kid, it’s really great and I want to listen to it repeatedly. Their sound is tight, the vocals are clear and the idea’s talk about things that we all need to talk about. The first song “2.0.1.6. fuck this” talks a lot about the American failure of Trump. With the lyric of “the rich get rich the poor stay poor” with sound bites of The Grand Cheeto talking about his wall and his money makes me sad to admit it’s real. This is the kind of thing that should be and is causing concern in the United States and the World. Track 6 “The Daily Fail” is of course about the British newspaper The Daily Mail. It talks about the failure of the press and the ability to avert the minds of the people with pure trash news. “Hate, hate, hate the welfare state, hate, hate, hate the high tax rate,” though the The Daily Mail is considered to be a tabloid by most of the world, there are those who get the world views from this “tabloid trash” as they call it. The press is letting all of us down in a lot of ways, I would say that many newspapers have descended to tabloid level. Both of these songs along with track 13 “V.O.I.D.” which talks about how the world seems to operate mainly online, bring up issues that affect all of us. They do it in a loud and boisterous way with great chorus’s that do bring to mind “Gabba Gabba Hey” in a way. It is something that you can hear a crowd screaming together with the band. The chorus for “The Daily Fail” comes to mind “did you read it in the Daily Mail, Fail Fail, did you take it as the Holy Grail, Aooooah…” I can hear an audience gleefully screaming that out at the top of their lungs. There are some fun songs on the record as well like track 3 “Zombie Crawl” which opens with a great bass line, which talks about the zombie craze. It seems to be combining the phenomena of zombie crawls and the possibility of them being actual zombies. It’s a fun and fast song, very easy to sing along to. The whole album has a great sound with songs to make you think and songs to just have fun with. A good combination of the both and as I said before it really does sound amazing. These women have gotten off to a great start and when you start off with a record this good, it leaves us wanting more. I have seen comparisons to the B-52’s and many other bands that while great, don’t sound like this. I believe they have their own style, which in my mind is the best thing to have.

Tracks:

  1. 2016 (£**k Thi$)
  2. Roadkill
  3. Zombie Crawl
  4. Poser
  5. First World Problems
  6. The Daily Fail
  7. Tearaway
  8. Cotton Wool Kids
  9. I Can’t Cope
  10. Sue Me
  11. Quarter Life Crisis
  12. Ramonas go to Freiburg
  13. V.O.I.D
  14. Microwave Mandy

Link to Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/embed?uri=spotify:album:0fH6VOAJcE30vt32Swusfg

website

http://www.ramonas.co.uk/