MC16 – Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom.
MC16 are a band that take you back to a style of Punk-Rock that was very much a blueprint for what was yet to come. The band hail from England’s North and play a style characteristically more focussed on what is being said rather than any of the more contemporary styles pulling you in with crunching riffs and warped time signatures.
The band drive their point across in a manner reminiscent of the early Punks and do so in such a way that it is for the most part a charming rendition of such. ‘The Sergeant’ is the the fourth track in total from a band only in their second year and was actually premiered earlier this year at Rebellion Punk Music Festival.
‘The Sergeant’ begins with a very traditional bass-line and playful lead again reminiscent of a time where the genre was finding it’s feet. ‘The Sergeant’ segues between the this playful bounce and a thicker, more driven rhythm perhaps their most up-tempo thus far and by far their best.
Strained yet melodic vocals match the jagged but equally melodic backing standing as it’s best when it’s at it’s fastest. Admittedly, the main selling point of this new track are the insightful lyrics but when MC16 do increase the pace into slightly more recognisably modern Punk territory they are again, at their best.
Said lyrical content examines the issue of recruitment by a government in to the armed forces via pretty smiles, lies and incentives only to be mercilessly belittled by those in petit-power. But it doesn’t end there, the lies begin to fragment further as the realisation that once you’re in, you’re both forgotten and left – ‘Safeguarding interests which aren’t really theirs’.
MC16 certainly have some kinks to work out but that’s all part of it and with the honest conviction such as they have, they will surely attack more of the issues plaguing their surroundings via more classic Punk-Rock.
