Punk rock covered in sugar!
London punks Deadline face a problem that many female-fronted bands face. Firstly the attention can easily be taken away from the music as red-blooded punkers get lewd and inappropriate thoughts surrounding lead singer Liz Rose, and secondly in a male dominated genre, just how the hell do you get taken seriously?
Lead singer Liz has a sweet and harmonic voice that gives the band a sound a little like the Dancehall Crashers, which gives them a radio-friendly tone. First song, 'Blood On Your Hands' gives us a slice of punk that is ferocious in the music and thought provoking in the lyrics, but wrapped up with bows and tissue-paper, with the sweet vocals. This is from a band that recently did a rather good version of Blondie's 'Hanging On The Telephone', which gives another indication as to the band's influences.
There is great music to the anthem-esque '1975' - the year before I was born incidentally - that makes you nod your head and hum along. 'Preferences' is another mid-tempo number with great pounding drums. There are the added "Hey! Heys" which sound like Avril Lavigne on her track 'I Always Get What I Want' (which I consider her best song). 'Keep On Running' is another Dancehall Crashers sounding number before we have a more hardcore approach with the beastly 'I Won't Give', a song which fires at you like a beer bottle to the side of your head whilst you are meditating in a hippy commune.
Another great tune is 'Hey You!' with chunky bass-lines and retro-guitar-riffs, there is a flash of rockabilly and a nod at Horrorpops. 'Hold On Me' is straight-up punk rock, and 'Excuses' is a little more pop-punk, with its catchy tune. The punk vocals of a snarling guy and the sweet harmonic vocals of Liz together on 'All I Ever Wanted' are interesting, and quite frankly the jury is out on whether or not they work! Last song, 'Moving Lines' is an acoustic number with more than a slight influence from the number of decent punk bands that Deadline have played alongside like, Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, The Distillers and Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards.
All in all, what you get is a sugary taster of Punk rock. It's a good album, though perhaps not amazing, mixing the sounds of Dancehall Crashers, with other Londoners The Fight, and coming out somewhere between the two. It's surprising that this doesn't fly off the shelves over in The States, but we'll wait and see. A spoon full of sugar helps the punk-rock go down...