Rats on Rafts/De Kift: Last Day on De Zon (Fire)

Yes, it's true we probably don't hear enough homegrown Dutch post-punk here. But despite the name of our country . . . why would we?

Here from the country which houses the province of Old Zeeland – which actually just down the road from Rotterdam – comes what we at a distance might consider a Rotter-supergroup.

Because longtime local noise-punk-pop-rockers RoRafts team up with near neighbours/brash brass post-punkers De Kift for . . .

Well, much as you might expect: rough hewn but exciting, play-loud, brash rock-with-horns.

The fury gets dialled down a bit in places (an acoustic ballad in pleasingly incomprehensible Dutch on Dit Schip) but old Kiwi post-punkers who knew the UK scene may hear echoes of the Ruts . . . 

The title of Melk en Benzine might suggest Dr Feelgood's Milk and Alcohol, but with the Kift horn section on board, some serious forward-leaning guitar thrust from RoRafts' David Fagan and a kind of Wall of Intensity in attack you can't help but punch the sky . . . while asking yourself, “What the fuck is this guy on about?”

That said, this is a recording and it is doubtless an experience you need to see and feel.

At a Womad perhaps? 

But, if you only buy one album by an implosion of two bands from Rotterdam this month . . .

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