Twenty One Children – After the Storm EP
(Slovenly Recordings)
CD | DL
Out Now
Lo-fi trashy hardcore from the streets of Soweto with an 80s US punk influence. Nathan Brown reviews.
Mention Soweto and (depending on their age) people’s first reach will be the township uprisings against apartheid or the World Cup, not punk rock. Twenty One Children are a trio who have come hurtling out of the Johannesburg district.
Once they have the opening spoken “skit” out of the way, Twenty One Children hit you between the eyes with Life Thing. Bassy and basic, with a healthy dose of distortion, there is a lo-fi appeal to this record.
The energetic and slightly loose delivery reminds me of the Beastie Boys Some Old Bullshit album which featured their early hardcore songs. The song Scab could even be a cousin of Egg Raid On Mojo. This is their anti-police anthem, a must for any self-respecting punk band.
While the overdriven guitar tone sometimes has a touch of a grunge or noise rock feel, I’d most definitely file this alongside the stripped back 80s hardcore stylings of Reagan Youth and Verbal Abuse. It’s get up and go stuff.
Closing the EP, the acoustic song Kasi Ghost Stories sits apart from the rest of the EP. Singing about malaria infected mosquitos, manufactured epidemics and chemicals in the hospitals, you get the feeling the refrain “Hell City” is not about some fictional place but about their experience.
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All words by Nathan Brown. You can read more from Nathan on his Louder Than War archive over here.
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