Project Mork are a weirdo punk band from East Anglia, England. They cast forth a car crash of The Vandals, Devo, Voodoo Glow Skulls and Bomb The Music Industry. There’s a lot going on on this record, which comes in at a blistering 22 minutes over nine tracks, but at the heart there’s a distinct old school punk feel. There’s a lot of noise and the songs are about life, albeit from a slanted perspective. Comparisons to BTMI and Leftöver Crack are fair to my mind, both in the quality of songs and recording.

Lyrically speaking, Smell The Blade, is pretty puerile. If you’re still spinning The Vandals or the Macc Lads or anything like that, it’ll be right up your street, if not, not so much. Songs about having “…warts on mah ding-dong” don’t really cut it for me these days, which is a shame, because it means I accidentally grew up a bit.

This record is all over the place, but it’s tight. Kind of like when Mike Patton sang with The Dillinger Escape Plan, but if DEP had been listening to The Specials and Napalm Death before recording. There’s no specific gripe, I’d just rather listen to two albums, a metal one and a ska one, over this. This is exemplified by the song ‘Nigel Farage’s Suicide Wank Fantasy’ (yes, really).

Most of this record sounds like it was recorded in a bin. Which is likely deliberate (see 13 Stitches by NOFX, ripping off the actual best recording sound the Descendents could afford back in the day). That won’t get a pass from me I’m afraid, it’s next to no hassle to get a good sound in your living room these days.

Standing out from the crowd to me is track two, ‘Facial Blade Face’: it opens with a Slayer-worthy riff and some fast paced, tight work from everyone, and then seamlessly weaves back and forth between speed metal and ska for the duration of the song. It’s an instrumental, but it’s amazing. This record however is also host to the worst thing I have heard in a long time, a ska tribute to the Prodigy. Really, this is worse than the ‘dance ska’ craze a decade ago. Let it die already.

If you like all the things I don’t, you can pick it up from Aaahh!!! Real Records now.

– Andy Blyth