Affected Youth are a punk rock band from Galway, in Ireland. In the band’s own words:
We play a lot of different styles and fuck them all together – there’s ska, hardcore, crusty bits, covers all your bases, like.
That’s an approach that typically works one of two ways: either fling as much shit as possible at the wall and see what sticks; or divine inspiration of some kind. Thankfully I’ve been able to enter into this without any prejudice. And, full disclosure, I was supposed to check this out a couple of months back, but the grinding reality of my existence allowed it to completely slip my mind.
Bearing in mind my previous statement there, I’d be inclined to go with ‘divine inspiration’ here. Opener Avant Garda Síochána comes on like a drunken Dead Kennedys / Social Distortion mash-up. By the tame we hit 4th cut, The Sick, we’ve already been visited by a crusty version of The Clash’s more ska moments, the astrally projected voice of Glenn Danzig and a sludgy version of Tragedy.
Trashe
Affected Youth are certainly not afraid of keeping things interesting, and after the weird skiffle of Noice, we plunge headfirst into I’m So Class which comes on like an evil brawl between Crass, Drive Like Jehu, The Fall and SSD. Mental, mate. Trashe sounds somewhere between Guns n’ Wankers, some kind of Scooby Doo interval music and Let’s Go era Rancid.
The album also features an awesome cover of Hate The Police by The Dicks, which I can highly recommend. One of the highlights for me is Tinfoil which feels a bit like a UK82 version of Sleaford Mods. Punk, mate. But yeah, this is pretty great, and impossible to pigeonhole. If you’ve enjoyed stuff recently from Denim & Leather, Incisions and 2 Sick Monkeys for example, then I think you’ll especially enjoy this one. Tony of Nurgle rating: 9/10.
The album is up on their bandcamp page https://affectedyouth.bandcamp.com/ on a pay what you want basis. But fling them a few quid. This lot need to be kept in cheap cider or Buckfast in order to fuel more of this wonderful music.
