Words: Richie Yates, Photos: Richie Yates / Alan Blundell
Thats the 2025 post New Years cobwebs blown away then. On a slushy frozen Sunday we head to the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead for an early evening of musical entertainment provided by the Birkenhead underground sound‘s regular Punk Sundays.
Two of the bands were from out of the area and are snowed in so can’t make it leaving the ever present Bite Back and newcomers Fallen to play to a surprisingly good sized crowd – considering the weather and the competition from a football game or some such…
Fallen hit the stage and are a jolt to the senses. Its a new and young band but they hit it with such passion that its immediately easy to just get carried along with them. Comparisons abound with the audience already talking about them. The Fall (natch) get mentioned, Joy Division are in there too and you can hear those touchstones in their music but there’s a lot more going on. They hit up 60s beat riffs and the lead guitar frequently employs rock n roll and bluesy motifs to add flavour. The vocals are delivered with fervour and frequently anger, ‘Party in Downing Street’ aimed at those two faced politicians who celebrated whilst the rest of us isolated from loved ones is particularly fervent (and so good they played it twice)! Watch out for these, they have the swagger, the licks and an edginess that captures attention.
Bite Back slide on up, it’s their gig really and they already have the crowd onside. There’s a few new songs (or at least new to me) early in the set showing that they aren’t going to sit on their laurels and are prepared to musically move forward. Its punk for sure but for me its about the songs, there’s a wide range of stuff going on from Piratical sounding ‘Hey Ho’s’ on ‘Whiskey Galore’ to the more direct emotional subjects of ‘I don’t like you anymore’. Its all still punky but each song sounds unique and stops Bite Back from ever having to worry about the sounding the same thing that can affect some bands. They end with one of my favourites (and it seems to have been brought back into play because they had time to fill after the band dropouts), ‘One Eyed City’. a fantastic song played with heart.
Links:
Biteback
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100050366169014
Bandcamp: https://bitebackpunk.bandcamp.com
Fallen:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fallen.band/