Bringing together members of Heavy Temple, Morgul Blade and intensive noise-makers Narcos Family Band, Straight Red is a US-based hardcore punk outfit who are obsessed with British OI! punk and football – or as the Yanks call it, “soccerrr”. The mix of influences and talents doesn’t bode very well from the outset. A lot of OI! punk – a fixture during the second wave of punk in the UK – as its name suggests, eschews many of the genre’s better elements in favour of gang based shouting designed to rouse the crowd, and the football theme applies a concept here that further reduces any broader appeal the punky material might have had. Luckily, at just six tracks and just a little shy of fifteen minutes, as irksome as this EP is in places, it’s a musical assault that’s mercifully brief.

Issued as a digital track ahead of the EP itself, ‘Own Goal’ features a siren like lead guitar that uses a strong melody to cut through a world of shouting, and unexpected twin lead sounds suggest that, despite tossing their talents away on songs that mix shouting with unpleasant novelty, the band can play. The peak of the track has flashes of melody that borrow from Stiff Little Fingers and UK Subs, bringing a welcome first wave element to the Straight Red sound, so its a shame that any of the musical interest is offset by a fairly awful slurred vocal. It’s very much a case of a reasonable track being spoilt by a poor execution. The pogo-worthy ‘Studs Up’ actually works fairly well thanks to a jagged chorus riff that’s got far more of a US punk flow, and by introducing handclaps and a crooned vocal, it’s hard not to miss the Misfits influence. …And in case the subtle as bricks homage to Glenn Danzig is missed, part of the vocal actually drops into the melody from ‘Last Caress’ at one point. Also ensuring this less football obsessed track fits the remit, the biggest vocal hook actually sounds like a crowd of football fans delivering a massive, wordless “whoah”, which could slide into a “one-nil” chant, or “you’re shit and you know you are!” at any moment. Looking at all of the elements together, this is easily the EP’s best offering. Whilst neither of these tracks are awful, they aren’t in any way punk classics. You won’t find anything here that others haven’t done better – and the similarly football mad Terraces spring to mind almost immediately.

Aside from those tracks, things wobble between bad and genuinely awful. ‘Anthem’ opens with a gang of voices in full roar, before the guitars and drums attack a melody best described as the tune to “you’re gonna get your fuckin’ head kicked in!”. Branching out into the main riff, a shouty vocal tells the listener that the protagonists have “football violence running through [their] head” in a style that calls back to old Cock Sparrer and GBH records, whilst a metal edged guitar drops in various riffs that sound like they’ve been lifted from the more metal-infused Agnostic Front recordings. It’s well played enough, but so, so lazy, you’d have to wonder why it would deserve more than a cursory spin. The tedious ‘Old Bastard’, meanwhile, recounts a tale of a man “taking the piss until his dying day”, set against an uninspired, jagged edged riff, dominated by more shouting. The idea of labouring a point means nothing to this band and after the main sorry tale descends into a noisy riff coupled with the sounds of wet coughing, several bars are filled with hooligan baiting “whoahs”. Then, when you think things couldn’t get any worse, ‘Violence Is Football’ provides an old school football hooligans’ anthem, mixing more Cock Sparrer tedium with a football chant on a track that appears to side with hard drinking and violent stereotypes from forty years prior to this recording. A few punk fans in the US might find this somehow amusing, but for a British crowd keen to distance itself from this part of the sport’s past – and the parts of a punk history that champion a similarly unsavoury kind of unity – it really won’t play well at all, even if it were designed as a joke.

Taking an already rather concept to extremes, ‘We Hate Us’ opens with yet another unashamed football chant, before dropping into another round of noise where chugging riffs hint at old school hardcore punk. It’s fairly bad, but after transitioning into a half-melody where lolloping guitar gets played with an extra metal influence, Straight Red sound like a band who just aren’t ready for public consumption. This actually feels a little directionless and certainly half-arsed, as its slower mantle just accentuates any sloppiness in the band’s sound. It’s also hard to know whether, lyrically, this is designed as a comment on the old football hooligans themselves, suggesting they have some sort of underlying self-loathing when out to deliberately cause damage, or a cheap dig at a bunch of older football fans who might kick off if the match doesn’t go their way. Either way, as a concept, it doesn’t work. If anything, it wears Straight Red’s already limited palate far too thinly, and adds something even worse to an EP of decidedly dodgy material.

There are flashes of interest here – a couple of the guitar parts are great, and the knowing Misfits tribute definitely stands out for the better – but it’s hard to get past the fact that, whether intentionally or not, Straight Red seem only too keen to glorify the violent attitudes of both the football fans of the past, and those of the less bright punk fans of the 1980s. The combination of both things just leads to a fiery, angsty mess. It’s also the kind of EP that plays to so much of a schtick that its hard to imagine that even older fans of the original OI! scene would be convinced.

Although it feels like parody – and was likely intended as such – there isn’t really a gag here, and sticking a photo depicting genuine football related violence on the sleeve (a press photo taken at St. Andrew’s Stadium in 1985, just a few years prior to the Hillsborough disaster) just trivialises this far, far too much. It’s hard to imagine many punk fans getting any short term enjoyment from this release, let alone considering it the kind of digital download that’ll genuinely enrich their collections. Oi, Oi…one to avoid.

August 2024