The tenor of the moment is apocalyptic; what better time for Send More Paramedics to return? Waking from their fifteen years of slumber, the zombie quartet have risen to once more wreak havoc among the human punks on The Final Feast and show us that you don’t need to have blood flowing through your veins to thrash the fuck out.
For the uninitiated, Send More Paramedics are the UK’s premier zombie punk band, a messy crossover thrash group that play earnest to their fantasy, with a true fixation on gore and undeath that carries into their performance and visuals. It’s been 15 years since these four bodies of rotting flesh released any music, but holy hell have they not missed a step. The band welcome us back into their world with ripping riffs from guitarist Medico to introduce ‘Mortify’ and then when we hear the familiar shrieking vocals of B’Hellmouth, it feels like the vocalist has been walking among us the whole time. Absolutely ripping solo at the end too.
It isn’t just all snarl and guts when it comes to Send More Paramedics, they also can throw in flourishes of catchy songwriting, as on ‘Totenkopf’ where the vocals are spat out with greater urgency and melody after a post-punkish opening guitar figure. If you are already familiar with the back catalogue of the Zombie Crew then a lot of The Final Feast won’t come as a shocking surprise to you. But tracks like ‘She Lives’ and ‘Splatterpunk’ are the Leeds based crew at their thrash-punk best, and when listening to B’Hellmouth singing about the life of a zombie it does make it sound ever so enticing.
But for this to be the bands first proper release in fifteen years you can’t even say they have aged like a fine wine, because the undead don’t age, but that is more apt. More like Send More Paramedics were frozen and have now returned to feast on our flesh one final time with ripping riffs, snarling vocals and a collection of songs which will leave you headbanging into an early grave.
The Final Feast is out now and can be ordered here.
Words: Tim Birkbeck
