Competent post-punk retread fails to convincingly justify its existence
To paraphrase Cracker, the world needs another post-punk knockoff like I need an intrusive root canal from Andy Gill. The problem is not that The Dead 60s don’t pillage the legacy competently—from the English Beat Euro-ska of “Nowhere” to the Clashy dub of “Control This,” from lead single “Riot Radio”’s unrelenting Gang of Four-isms to the healthy doses of overt disco punk at all points in between; the songs and performances are right on the (by-now-devalued) money. The problem is just that the necessary cage match between Radio 4, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Rapture and The Dead 60s (who easily have the least genuine enthusiasm of the bunch) hasn’t been resolved yet so as to convince me why playing my 23 Skidoo, Clash and Madness records on repeat isn’t just as good as shelling out hard-earned clams for rehashes like this.