Austinist Album Review: Buzzcocks' 30

As a testament to the band’s career and influence, 30 falls deceptively short. It’s not that they doesn’t seem passionate, or that they or their new label (Cooking Vinyl) are pushing this product out there as some sort of money-grab. The problem is that the recording of 30 is weak, with the vocals straining to keep up with the chugging guitars and maddened drums, sounding somewhere between Kiss’s Alive! and a guy holding a tape recorder over his head in the 33rd row in terms of quality. Because the recording itself is so disappointing, so muddled and busy – in other words, the antithesis of the smart, pointed assault that the band trademarked on songs like “I Don’t Mind” and “Get On Our Own” – the album is ultimately not what the Buzzcocks deserve after so many years of smart-assessed servitude to punk rock. While it might have made a fun bootleg to circulate online, as an official release it sounds a mess. Even the performance of the songs feels rushed. The Buzzcocks break off twenty-eight numbers with hardly a word other than a shout of song introduction, and the pace generally feels breakneck, as though were the band’s songs to fall short of 100 B.P.M.’s, the Buzzcocks would explode.

At least the song choices hold up, and it’s easy enough to find a lot to love about these tracks in general as long as you don’t let their recording weakness overwhelm your enjoyment. The new material sounds as good as their classic numbers, which include “E.S.P.,” “Promises,” and “Operator’s Manual” - all Buzzocks’ best. Diggle and Shelley alternate songs and vocals, and Farrant and Barber are a consummate rhythm section, with Farrant especially adept at channeling the busy and fill-heavy drumming pioneered by original Buzzcock John Maher.

So if you want to celebrate the thirty year anniversary of the Buzzcocks on your own, 30 might not be the way to go. Instead, fire up their definitive Singles Going Steady, or, for the more adventurous, peruse their back catalog. But if it’s really live Buzzcocks you need, well, they’ve released at least five other collections of live material over the years. It’s too bad 30 doesn’t rise to the occasion, but at least there’s no hiding that the Buzzcocks are still the original, and still the best.