Hull band Zero Cost do the sort of punk I really like, they do songs about something – issues, concerns, world events. This time they are tackling the upcoming UK and US elections in 2024.
I’ll come back to this in a bit but first the sound. In a phrase old style punk; breakneck speed, fast throbbing bass, spiky guitars. But it’s clever you see, this is no overwhelming wall of sound, you can hear ALL the instruments, there’s space in the sound. And this gives it power. It sounds fantastic, you got that.
Now, as the song is about something, you might be asking yourself ‘ is this a protest song, a commentary or a call for action?’ It’s actually all three of these. It – if I’m hearing it right – basically calls out both the Left and Right for being ‘the same old same old’, says that we need a change from this, and have the courage to demand something else. And it says this in words that are worth listening to properly. And while you may be thinking that the song is calling for a politics of a certain kind; it isn’t, it’s just calling for the same old same old to be replaced with something new, a change, and for all of us to have the courage to make that change.
Zero Cost do songs that sound bloody fantastic and are about something, and ‘Red Or Blue’ does that brilliantly. In a word, outstanding.
