Milky Wimpshake
Encore, un Effort!
(Fortuna Pop)
Pete Dale's pop punk combo is something of a Newcastle institution and this, the band's sixth album of his witty songs of politics and other affairs of the heart, teams him vocally with Sophie Evans, who was as yet unborn when the band played their first shows. His great ringing guitar and the melodic bass of Christine Rowe are still the basis of Milky Wimpshake's basic music-making (Mike Walsh is their umpteenth drummer) which often recall Buzzcocks at their incisive best (on Sexual Deviant and Parachute Drop), while Dale can resemble Graham Fellows' Jilted John guise (particularly on My Girl in Brackets).
It is the combination of the two voices gives this set its highlights, the Beatrice and Benedick of punk pop jousting on Ping Pong Lovers, Loose Lips Schtick, and Le Revolution Politique, a Francophone nod to 60s Ye-Ye girls and the Situationist sloganising which gives the album its title. Possibly. Dale's muse ricochets between calls to arms for the working class (Coming Soon), reminiscences of going to the football with his dad (The Beautiful Game) and lusting after girls who read Gormenghast but won't look at him twice (You Don't Look Twice). The naivety of the songs comes with a knowingness that only experience brings.
Keith Bruce
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