A few months ago, I championed the incredibly fun Crash My Ride EP from Stagecoach for being chock full of great singalong lyrics, growling guitars, and most importantly having a massive, stupid grin on its face. The band are back with the double A-side single release of two brand new tracks - 'Jonah Lomu' and 'Tony Hawk', and they're both belters.
'Jonah Lomu' brings an almost brit-pop element to Stagecoach's self-proclaimed "junk-pop", especially in the catchy 'ooohs' that open the tune and the distorted, sneering vocals. Later on though it's back to the usual business with squealing, chugging guitars, simple but effective drumming, and a hook-laden chorus.
'Tony Hawk's opening yell of 'And it goes like...' once again lays way to a brilliant pop-punk chorus, while the lyrics, with talk of packing bongs and playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, continue the Stagecoach tradition of being exquisitely, knowingly trashy, which isn't to say they're bad at all - the band deals in a very precise form of entertainingly disposable wordplay. Whilst I feel that Stagecoach are at their best when they're having fun, there's a pretty serious message underlying the tune too, about university students being unappreciative of their opportunity to learn, which in the light of the Tory cuts seems more pressing than ever.
These two tunes might not surpass the best moments of Crash My Ride (the Dananananaykroyd-esque 'Map To The Freezer' still holds the crown of being their best tune), but 'Jonah Lomu' and 'Tony Hawk' certainly make good company in the University Library when you've got 10,000 words of essays to write (hence the lack of posts recently), and that's got to be a good thing.
Jonah Lomu by Stagecoach
'Tony Hawk' is currently unable to embed, I'll link it if it becomes available!
The double A-side single release can be bought on CD (in limited pizza box packaging!) at the upcoming Stagecoach UK tour.
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