This week’s MP3 download is ‘Ninja Punks, 1′ by The Blitz Cartel - click just here to have a listen and go here to find out more about the band.

I really wish people would stop trying to make punk progressive. If it progresses it ain’t punk anymore, right? Can’t you crazy kids get that in your heads? The Blitz Cartel certainly can’t, piling awkward time changes and egregious stylistic elements on top of one another to no particular effect. ‘I Don’t Mind’ is an example, combining an antediluvian Kinks-like verse with a chorus The Clash may have rejected as too unsophisticated. Lewis Burke Smith’s singing is atrocious throughout. In contrast, the opening ‘I’m feeling fine’ is unrefined punk, being a breezy and short-lived thrash with copious incomprehensible yelling. Musically distinguished it isn’t, but it works as an exercise in adolescent letting off of steam. ‘Jojo’ starts with a good meaty punk riff before lapsing into disco (yawn) and some more rubbish singing, this time on the hoary subject of Time Travel. The punk rocker as Dr Who nerd? Somebody shoot me.