Band: Winnebago Deal
Release: Bail Out (EP)
Release Date: 19/04/2014
Four years on from 2010’s ‘Career Suicide’ and an initial hiatus, Oxford’s very own Winnebago Deal have returned with their EP ‘Bail Out’, which includes four tracks of good old punk rock. Packing a punch of a heavyweight boxer, ‘Bail Out’ is sure to wake you up from your sleep, no matter how deep it is. You may fall back to sleep soon after though.
All four songs are full of speed, energy, raw power and brute force and would make babies cry on a sunny day if it was roaring out your car speakers with the windows rolled down. Title track and opener ‘Bail Out’ blasts its way through the doors of your ears and gives you an instant idea of what the ‘Deal’ are all about. Loud guitars, loud drums, loud vocals, just loud everything. The guitar solos are strong, particularly in penultimate track ‘Scene Of The Crime’, and Ben Perrier’s vocals are admirable. The vocals compliment the songs and the style perfectly and some of the screams that this man can produce, such as in ‘Gimme A Bullet’, are just hands down impressive. This, however, is all that this EP really has to offer and it does not provide any real evolution or progress from 2010’s ‘Career Suicide’. Although, the formulas of traditional punk rock have definitely been followed, with all the tracks having similar tempos, repetitive choruses and a lack of any change at all in dynamics, there is no real edge to this EP and it is particularly difficult to distinguish the songs from each other even after the first few listens.
And with only one of the four songs breaking the two minute mark (and that’s only broken it by sixteen seconds!), you can’t help but ask for a little more. Yes, of course, punk rock is meant to be short, direct and straight to the point but maybe even an extra song or an extra chorus here and there would have been appreciated. Raw punk rock with all the energy and power but lacking the originality to make it special. Winnebago Deal haven’t done badly but they haven’t done great either.
5/10
Reviewer: Jonathan Markwell
