THE GANG
Sex, drugs and rock n roll

I pretty much knew what The Gang were going to sound like because their cover is quite styled and they are posing a bit like N*E*R*D. And so I wasn’t surprised that this three piece are trying the same style of urban hip-hop/R and B mixed with guitars and JT-influenced warbling, particularly on second track “Gimmie a call”. Whilst they have a good beat, create a good live band sound and have their own ‘street’ aliases- therefore making this strong in many respects- it is the fairly meaningless lyrics that pretty much leave The Gang on their arses. From the school of song-writing that think the over-use of the words “brrrrap”, “boo” and “fly” (to indicate something is good- in this case, for example, the actress Lucy Liu), interspersed with some sexually explicit lyrics, constitutes a sing-a-long verse, the approach that The Gang are taking has, unfortunately, been rather done to death. As has the whole sex, drugs and rock n roll thing actually. I mean, have they not seen Johnny Rotten in the butter adverts? Now that’s a subject for a hip-hop tune. Hmmm… what rhymes with butter? Shutter… mutter… “I open the shutter on my large win-dows, I mutter to myself ‘Ain’t that the way it goes?’ No sex, no drugs, just a load of clutter; and Johnny’s on the telly shouting about butter.” How’s that for some lyrics? To be fair, these guys are as good as any of the stuff currently out there. Apart from they come from the streets of Hull. Awesome. I wish them well.

Anna C

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