NEW ALBUM: PUNK ROCKERS – The Best Of Vice Squad

Vice Squad – Punk Rockers The Best of Vice Squad Volume 1 Last Rockers Records

Vinyl LRV 3
CD LROC 34

Fully remixed and remastered audio
100% DIY Punk Rockers release blistering twenty-first-century collection of classics.
Compiled by original singer/songwriter Beki Bond and produced by Paul Rooney and Beki Bond

Includes ‘If I Knew What I Know Now’ ‘Last Rockers’ ‘Sniffing Glue’ ‘Out Of Reach’ and ‘Punk Police’
LP includes lyrics/unseen photos/tattoo insert; CD includes 16-page lyrics poster booklet.

Limited edition black vinyl, CD in digipack, t-shirt, poster, patch, postcards and pin badge available as a collector’s pack.

image of Vice Squad Punk Rockers The Best Of Vice Squad 'Full Monty' pack with transparent red and black, purple and black vinyl LPs with covers, CD in digipack, men's t-shirt, poster, postcards, patch, stickers and pin badge
Vice Squad Punk Rockers The Best Of Vice Squad ‘Full Monty’ pack with transparent red and black, purple and black vinyl LPs with covers, CD in digipack, men’s t-shirt, poster, postcards, patch, stickers and pin badge

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Punk rock anthems lovingly reworked by their original architect. Beki breathes new fire into eighties classics alongside twenty-first-century earworms like ‘Ordinary Girl’ and the Motörhead-on-double-amphetamines ‘Spitfire’.
The songs have been freshly recorded and remastered, keeping all the original passion and adding decades of experience gained from punishing tours and continuous songwriting.

‘Best of’ albums are invariably repackaged collections of old recordings, so Vice Squad’s ‘Punk Rockers’ is a breath of fresh air.
Vice Squad are 100% DIY and record everything in their home studio with guitarist/riffmaster Paul Rooney engineering and mixing. There is nothing sloppy here; the whole album is concise and intelligent with lightning-speed diction, passion, and intent.

Beki: ” ‘Last Rockers Records’ came about because we went from licensing albums to both major and indie labels to becoming completely DIY and releasing music on our own label.
It’s been a steep learning curve and increasingly difficult to do because it costs a small fortune and we’re full-time (and therefore skint!) musicians in a world full of Spotify, AI and tribute bands.

But nothing worthwhile is easy, and we felt it was time Vice Squad’s musical history was told by those who carried the torch and kept the name alive for the last 28 years.
Many times we felt like abandoning the project, but the loyal support and encouragement from  Squaddies kept us going.”

image of Vice Squad Punk Rockers The Best Of Vice Squad transparent red and black vinyl LP with front cover, patch and stickers
Vice Squad Punk Rockers The Best Of Vice Squad transparent red and black vinyl LP with front cover, patch and stickers.

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The glorious ‘If I Knew What I Know Now’ and ‘The World Is Wrong’ are examples of Vice Squad’s ability to write instantly catchy, witty songs, and the more gut-wrenching material from their last album, ‘Battle of Britain’, showcases some enormous riffs and a voice that is a million decibels from Beki’s untried teen vocals.
The album opens with the deliciously effervescent ‘If I Knew What I Know Now’, followed by the sparkling old-school tongue-twister ‘Out of Reach’.
Next up is the visceral ‘Get A Life’, an angry anti-suicide note to the desperate, originally the title track from their 1998 comeback album. This is followed by a shimmering version of Vice Squad’s old-school classic ‘Resurrection’.
While the treatment of the old songs remains true to the original teenage renditions, the upgraded versions pack more of a punch with detuned guitars and growling bass.
The tribal tom-toms of ‘Allergy’ underpin just over two minutes of punk protest about the delights of pollution and asthma.
Then comes the sublime ‘Sniffing Glue’, a near-perfect punk love song that would be a huge hit if not for its subject matter.
‘Ordinary Girl’ is punk-pop perfection brimming with hook lines and harmonies, warmly mocking the life that could have been chosen instead of the grindstone at the sharp end of the music industry.

image of Vice Squad Punk Rockers The Best Of Vice Squad CD album digipack disc with lyric insert
Vice Squad Punk Rockers The Best Of Vice Squad CD album digipack disc with lyric insert

BUY HERE

‘The World Is Wrong’ is anthemic, joyous, and wonderfully contrary, and one would expect nothing less from a band that has soldiered on and grown through the decades. It’s always great when bands lead by example.
In these increasingly tough times where our survival is threatened by the gargantuan greed of a few individuals, it’s important to continuously stick two fingers up to the grabbers and spoilers. ‘The World Is Wrong’ does just that in an impassioned, melodic and optimistic style. ‘Hold your head up, stand your ground, and don’t let the bastards grind you down.’

Then we roar into the final single Beki wrote with original and now sadly deceased guitarist Dave Bateman, ‘Citizen’, and continue with another teenage opus, the quite brutal ‘Scarred For Life’.

‘Voice of the People’ is a bulldozer of a song, all swagger and ballsy riffs, and the chorus, ‘Freedom of speech is against the law; now we’re all criminals,’ snarls its derision at red-handed red tape.
‘Punk Police’ sneers over a catchy-as-COVID guitar riff, and the lyrics, ‘Regulation cut, you must measure up, down on the street, PR companies, monied families, running the scene,’ call out the hierarchies that now permeate Punk.
Baritone guitars add extra darkness to one of the first-ever animal rights songs, ‘Humane’, and I’m struck by how relevant the older songs are.
Chocks away, and the awesome ’Spitfire’ takes flight like Motörhead on extra amphetamines
Merlin engines fade into ‘Born In A War’, the second in the triumvirate of conflict-themed songs, an absolute stonker with huge muscular riffs and lyrics that roar pure outrage.
image of Vice Squad Punk Rockers - The Best Of Vice Squad Volume 1 purple vinyl album with front cover and insert
Vice Squad Punk Rockers – The Best Of Vice Squad Volume 1 purple vinyl album with front cover and insert
Then comes the ominous Last Rockers, with all the angst of the original plus added depth and resonance.

Beki: ‘ “Last Rockers” is a typically depressive adolescent song about nuclear war and being too young to die but too late to live. I believed Punks were the ‘Last Rockers’, the final youth cult before the Apocalypse. I was obsessed with punk, and all I wanted to do was sing in a band and be part of the movement, so I would often romanticise the idea of punk in my lyrics.’

The four bonus CD tracks kick off with ‘Coward’, another teen Bateman/Bond composition.

‘No You Don’t’ is just over two minutes of vocal acrobatics over a Dxedrine-driven Devo-esque chord sequence, and the frantically brilliant ‘I Dare To Breathe’ from ‘Battle Of Britain’ continues the aural assault.

Then the final sombre entreaty of ‘You Can’t Buy Back The Dead’ warns us that ‘Enough’s never enough; absolute power will corrupt; the war machine still rumbles on’ before fading into the future.

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