Are you craving more punk in your life? Looking for something to fill that interminable wait before Bob Vylan or Soft Play releases a new album? Well, maybe you should check out another two piece, The Meffs. The duo of Lily Hopkins (vocals/guitar) and Lewis Copsey (drums/backing vocals) dropped their first demo album in 2020, and you could see the sort of socially and politically aware songwriting that would define their sound. Tracks like “Your English is Great” and “No.10 PM” which attacked racism and a number of UK prime ministers, respectively.
Following on from 2024’s debut album What a Life and 2022’s EP Broken Britain, Pt. 1 (no part 2 so far? Shame), The Meffs are back with their second full-length release, Business. If you were perhaps worried that they might have softened their approach or decided to maybe try and go more mainstream in the hope of gaining wider acceptance, you needn’t worry. This album sees the band continuing to rail against the ills of modern society, and the song writing is as in-your-face as it always has been, refusing to march to the beat of anyone else’s drum or conform to anyone’s idea of who they should be or how they should play. They even call this out in title track “Business”, ripping into companies that claim they want you to be your “authentic self”, but oh no, not like that. No, not in a way that isn’t acceptable to corporate interests or shareholders or doesn’t synergise with their brand or doesn’t fit the special little label they want to put on you.
“If you were perhaps worried that they might have softened their approach or decided to maybe try and go more mainstream in the hope of gaining wider acceptance, you needn't worry.”
Photo Credit:
Second track “What A Nightmare” has a riff that sounds really rather similar to Soft Play‘s “Mirror Muscles”, just played in a higher key. A little nod and wink to one of the band’s inspirations for this album, perhaps? Like The Meffs, Soft Play are another punk duo, though their sound tends to be lower and grittier than what’s on offer here. Speaking of getting heavy and gritty, the final track, “Like Gravity”, is the heaviest track on the album, and it’s a hell of a way to wrap things up, with vocals that draw comparisons to Therapy?‘s Troublegum era. It’s an absolute headbanger of a track and one guaranteed to get a live crowd screaming along.
Business isn’t some huge move away from what’s gone before. It’s not some musical leap but a continued evolution of The Meffs’ sound and the maturing of their songwriting. No doubt, as always happens when a band releases a new album, there will be some internet basement dwellers that will try and claim that it’s a little less cutting than the band’s previous efforts, but polishing the product isn’t the same as being blunted, and this duo haven’t lost any of their teeth when it comes to picking the subjects they want to tackle.