By Jim Rowland
At the end of 2023, Cockney Rejects’ guitarist and founder Micky Geggus, after much soul searching, decided to leave the band that he created in 1979. Less than two years later, he’s back with his new band Punchdrunk Saints, which leans firmly in the hard rock direction he knows and loves.
It won’t be too much of a surprise to Rejects’ fans and others that Geggus has ditched the punk and embraced hard rock once more. More traditional rock sounds were embraced by the Rejects as far back as their Pete Way-produced album ‘The Wild Ones’ in 1982, and there were certainly a few rock stormers on the last Cockney Rejects album ‘Power Grab’ in 2022.
For this debut self-titled album, Geggus is joined in Punchdrunk Saints by original Rejects’ bassist Vinny Riordan, drummer Reg Downer and newcomer vocalist Marc Salmon, although Riordan and Downer could not commit to the band long term, and have since been replaced by a new rhythm team for the long haul.
‘Punchdrunk Saints’ encompasses a good range of different rock flavours throughout its ten tracks. ‘Holy Mother’, ‘A Prayer For Tomorrow’ and the grinding ‘Your Time Is Done’ are solid slices of crunching metal, with the latter showing off Mick Geggus’ guitar skills particularly well.
‘I Wanna Know What Its Like’, ‘Days Of Our Lives’, ‘Dirty Dreams’ and ‘Over You’ head more in a catchy and anthemic sleaze rock direction, whilst the southern rock-flavoured ‘Come Home’ and the Cheap Trick-esque ‘I Know Where To Find You’ provide the album’s softer moments. There’s also a cracking version of John Fogerty’s CCR classic ‘Fortunate Son’ in there for good measure too.
A very well-rounded album from the heavy to the melodic edges of rock and metal, ‘Punchdrunk Saints’ is an impressive and accomplished debut album.
- ‘Punchdrunk Saints’ is released today (Friday 24 October).
- Punchdrunk Saints play a special fundraiser in aid of PTSD999 at Fairycroft House in Saffron Walden on Saturday 27 December:
