Dundee’s young punks turn up the volume and make good on their Rebellion promise!
Young Dundee trio Aftrshocks properly grabbed my attention on the Rebellion Introducing Stage this summer, where they delivered one of those sets that reminds you what the stage is actually there for.
Raw, loud and unfussy, they tore through their set with what I described at the time as a blast of old-school punk power. Even a few technical gremlins couldn’t knock them off course. Daniel Caterer’s guitar, Danny Wallace’s bass and Cameron Sherriff’s drums simply kept charging forward, with ‘Get Loud’ getting one of the strongest reactions of their storming set.
It was good enough to send me straight to the merch desk afterwards, and listening to the ‘Get Loud’ EP back in Essex proved that wasn’t just festival enthusiasm getting the better of me. Now the EP has been released to a wider audience via Dammit Records and Bandcamp.
There’s something encouraging about discovering a bunch of young fellas who appear considerably angrier about the state of the world than they are about their Wi-Fi connection. Aftrshocks have their ears firmly tuned to first-wave punk, UK82 and anarcho, but this doesn’t feel like dressing up in somebody else’s rebellion – these guys have got plenty of their own frustrations to rail against.
The title track ‘Get Loud’ is the obvious manifesto: find your voice, turn it up and make yourself heard. It’s simple, direct and built around the sort of shout-along chorus that already proved itself in front of the Blackpool crowd. ‘Odd One Out’ turns alienation into two minutes of riffy defiance, while ‘Middle Class Gangster’ takes a sarcastic side swipe at would-be hard men. Fuzzy guitar, pounding rhythm section. Get in, make the point loudly and get out.
Then the mood gets heavier. ‘Rwanda’ takes hardcore aim at the hypocrisy surrounding war, displacement and refugees, while ‘You Belong (To Them)’ is an angry anti-war blast aimed squarely at those happy to send other people off to fight.
Nuanced? Not particularly. But for me young punks should just go for it! What matters most is the conviction and ideas, and that’s where Aftrshocks score. There are plenty of bands capable of reproducing the sound of punk. but fewer manage to capture that sense of discovering that a guitar, bass and drum kit can give you a voice that gets you heard far from home. In Aftrshocks‘ case, that’s quite unmistakenly Dundee.
Yes, there are rough edges here. Keep them, I say. Polishing everything until it gleams would remove precisely what made that Rebellion performance exciting in the first place. This is young Scottish punk still in the process of working out just how much noise it can make — whilst beginning to realise people are listening.
So, five songs, thirteen minutes, no wasted time or wasted E’s with this crew. The Introducing Stage introduced them. ‘Get Loud’ suggests Aftrshocks intend to stick around – and that is a very good thing!
‘Get Loud’ is out now via Dammit Records – check it out HERE.
Follow Aftrshocks on Their Socials:
Need more Punk In Your Life?
EP review: Aftrshocks – ‘Get Loud’
Young Dundee trio Aftrshocks properly grabbed my attention on the Rebellion Introducing Stage this summer, and they delivered one of those sets that reminds you
Album review: Slow Faction – ‘Return To The Windmill’
Alright, in terms of ‘I was there’ punk moments, the recent South London Punk Collective all-dayer wasn’t quite up there with the Sex Pistols at
Album review: Crapsons – ‘Sunshine On Keith’
There comes a point in every punk rocker’s life when staying out until four in the morning looking for rebellion stops being as attractive as
Interview: Alex catches up with teenage punks Yee Loi
One of the most exciting new UK bands that we’ve heard in a long time, Yee Loi is a teenage trio, all siblings, who hail
Album review: John Coffey – ‘Not Alone’
Many bands play punk rock – only a small percentage of those bands live it. Dutch quintet John Coffey are firmly in the latter camp,
Live review: The Circles, Proper & Dead Star Boys, London 26/9/26
Tonight, as every Saturday, there are many gigs happening in and around London. However, it’s not often that the capital gets a visit from an
Writer, lyricist, and guitarist with The Viral Breakdowns, radio presenter and passionate protagonist of Punk! From teenage rocker in the seventies, to playing my own original music in far flung parts of the world, I have a love for fast, loud, short sharp tunes with attitude and edge. Based in Chelmsford, you can find me out and about on the Essex and London music scene or rooting through the racks of record fairs, markets and car boot sales, looking for hidden punk rock treasures.
Did you know that we are 100% DIY? We run our own game. No one dictates to us, and no one drives what we can or cannot put on our pages – and this is how we plan to continue!
