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12" slab from Ipswich, UK's Stupids. Back with their first new music since 2009's The Kids Don't Like It...
They're still the same old Stupids but better, new and improved beyond expectation. No need to say more but if you must they have been blasting away since '83. Known for blazing a trail of destruction across the landscape with tours of all the major places and most of the minor ones. Leaving sensible people shocked and agape. Available now on a colorful hunk of wax (CLEAR / BLUE SPLATER VINYL - to be exact) with a colorful sleeve and full color insert.
Recorded by Hawkes Design & Build mobile at the East Coast Fight Factory, Bentwaters, Suffolk.
Mixed by Klute at PBJ Studio, Central Ipswich, Suffolk.
Our take: Slow on the Uptake is the new album from long-running UK hardcore band the Stupids. Originally formed in 1984, the Stupids were unique among their 80s UK punk/hardcore peers in that their sound was highly influenced by US hardcore. You can really hear that on their blistering first EP, 1985’s Violent Nun (see my staff pick on that record from a while back), but the Stupids stuck around until the end of the 80s, bringing in influences from west coast US skate punk on their later records. They reappeared in 2009 with a comeback LP that widened the sound even further, moving toward the big-guitar UK melodic hardcore/punk I associate with the label Boss Tuneage Records (who had reissued the Stupids’ back catalog in the intervening years). I liked that comeback LP, but I think Slow on the Uptake is even stronger, taking the early US hardcore influences they leaned on early on and seasoning them with the sounds the Stupids have mastered in the decades since. The result is a potent, song-oriented take on hardcore with all the ferocity of the early Dischord catalog, but with a newfound delicacy in the playing and songwriting, making furious but melody-tinged tracks like “Walnut Pacific” and “Come Into My Ear” sound like true masterpieces that synthesize years of work honing their craft. There’s also a surprising lyrical maturity here, which is most striking on the track “Neil’s Funeral,” whose lyrics are a thank-you letter written to attendees of the speaker’s deceased spouse’s funeral. With 8 songs in a brief 12 minutes, it feels like an update on the classic 80s US hardcore EP, losing none of that form’s excitement but finding room in it for all the wisdom (LOL) the Stupids have accumulated in the decades since that inspiring time.