Grade 2’s first Hellcat Records release is explosive, hook-laden and brimming with thrid album confidence. ‘Graveyard Island’ opens with the short but bitter lead single ‘Tired Of It’. The song comes in at one minute thirty-five seconds of spat out Street Punk Rock ‘N’ Roll. Produced by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong with Kevin Bivona from The Interrupters on the mixing desk proves a top-quality combination that certainly works. The entire album speeds by in a whirl of wheel-spinning getaway tyres, smoke and catchy Punk chorus’s. ‘Reality Is Calling’ opens like Anthrax’s ‘Indians’ before veering left and relentlessly punching Punk’s soul while title track ‘Graveyard Island’ has the perfect blend of parking lot and pavement influences with a well-measured splash of slam inducing beats. ‘Look Up’ has an old school glam rocking boot boy that’s closer to The Equals than Slade but just as addictive and the contrast in styles is balanced beautifully throughout. A bludgeoning ‘Murder Town’ is followed by the anti-anthem ‘Don’t Look Back’.
‘Johnny Aggro’ smashes the alarm clock of life before the pace slows, very very slightly, on the motoring ‘Bowling Green Lane’. ‘Dover Street’ dropkicks Grade 2 into the Murphys backyard while the reverse beat on ‘Monsters’ comes across like a defibrillator charged by red bull. Final cut ‘On The Radar’ is another blood pumping fist thumping espresso shot of Grade 2 Punk Rock. If Green Day, Tiger Army and Cock Sparrer had a bastard offspring it would be Grade 2 and ‘Graveyard Island’ is already in my top three albums of 2019. This is just a stunning release that gets better with each listen, I’m converted.
GRADE 2
GRAVEYARD ISLAND
(Hellcat)
9/10