Citizen Fish, Thirst CDR

Protest and radical bands are usually filled with doom-and-gloom. Thousands of dead babies, malicious government and religious agencies and things that wouldn't look out of place on an anti-edition of the Daily Mail. Whilst these are all true, Citizen Fish remind us that these things can be tackled with a bit of ska and a great sense of humour!

The album is 12 songs long and weighs in at just over half an hour and to my mind (bar perhaps "Free Souls in a Trapped Environment") is the best example of why Citizen Fish are so damned good. The opening song "Feeding" is a skank-tastic song about disinformation posed through rhetorical questions and great vocals. There are some other absolutely amazing songs on this album, notably "Used to Work", "Scene 496" (possibly the most biazzare and manic of all Citizen Fish songs save "Experiment Earth"), "Talk About the Weather", "Catholic Sex Confession" (absolutely superb satire on the hypocrisy of religion), "Criminal" and "Fill me Up." Heck, there are only a few songs I've failed to mention as brilliant and that's because I don't have the CD listing to hand! I can't recommend this album enough. It combines all the best lyrical elements of Dick's earlier (decent) bands Subhumans and Culture Shock, the best musical elements of Culture Shock and fuses an original and balanced variety of ska, punk, rock and manic tunes that put other bands to shame. Even my non-punk friends who consider most of my other music "talentless dross" think Citizen Fish are actually very good!

With such a legacy and an array of fine music, you never know where to start with Citizen Fish. I'd recommend this fine "premium global punk ska type" CD along with "Free Souls in a Trapped Environment" as essential listening. What's not to like? If you are a fan of other ska-punk, punk or anarcho-esque bands Citizen Fish will be right up your street. Can't recommend it enough!