Is there any finer type of culinary delight after a night on the piss than the kebab? Whether it is soaked in chilli sauce or garnished with lashings of salad, it will complete the night and also leave you with that taste of bittersweet meat and beer in the morning. Fortunately Yorkshires Catch-It Kebabs don’t suffer such problems and manage to carry an album with such finesse it leaves nothing but the sweet stench of brass as your final memory of this more forgiving type of delight.
With a stage choc full of band members including two vocalists, a rhythm section of drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and a four piece brass section, they manage to include most sub sections of the ska genre into the whole album and it is testament to the fact they have only been together three years that they have produced such a stunning debut album. I make no secret of the fact I have a hard time with ska, but when it is produced to this quality, it certainly makes you realise that if done well, the ska genre isn’t the piss taking fodder that a lot of people see it as. There is an irresistible catchy edge to CIK and that is no more shoved in your face than on such efforts as ‘Selectively Lazy’ and ‘She Needs Protection’. Styles such as swing, funk, blues, jazz, 2-tone and 3rd wave ska are all interweaved, while a distinct punk rock edge is always apparent. Those textbook comedic ska efforts are here in the form of ‘Miss Chernobyl’ and ‘Skankin Sausages’ while they are complemented with some textbook slices of cheese on efforts such as ‘Genetic Suicide’ and ‘The Feasta’.
As summer is around the corner, I haven’t heard a finer album to get you in the mood for it than Skankin Sausages. For a band in such its infancy they show a great detail of matureness in the their sound and with the sad demise of Lightyear, there is certainly an open race in the UK ska circuit for the mantle of chief skanker uppers and Catch-It Kebabs could be the answer to that kid in the Hawaiian shirts prayers.
Jay
www.catch-it-kebabs.com
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