The Senton Bombs – Gambit CD review

The Senton Bombs latest album Gambit shows a lot more maturity and contains a wider variety of more interesting and musically technical songs compared to their 2010 album entitled Sweet Chin Music. With ten killer punk rock anthems and only one mediocre song on the album; this has to be The Senton Bombs finest work to date, and is worthy of being heralded as one of the finest straight up punk rock albums of the past ten years. Larger than life riffs, slick, sleazy vocal lines and powerful chant along choruses are what make Gambit the amazing album that it is, and hopefully due to such a masterpiece The Senton Bombs will finally get the recognition they deserve as one of the best up and coming rock bands in the UK!

There is so much attitude and anarchy present in The Senton Bombs music and you just have to listen to tracks such as the fast paced, adrenaline fuelled pump of ‘Do Your Job’, the catchy ‘Highflyer’ and the early Motorhead sounding title track ‘Gambit’ to realise that The Senton Bombs are a band who aren’t doing this for the money. They are doing it for the love of the music and because they enjoy it and it’s great that the band are channelling all their energy, power and liveliness into the songs on this album, so that we can enjoy listening to it; just as much as they enjoy playing it.

Gambit is such a god damn catchy album and if you are not singing along to every track on it after the first listen then there is clearly something wrong with you. Both choruses are verses are easily accessible to those listening to them, and tracks like ‘Experiment’, ‘Hooked’ and ‘Sick Speed’ are all songs that make you want to bang your head, grab a beer and sing like a mad man. After all, that is what punk is all about is it not and it is crystal clear from every track on this album that The Senton Bombs have mastered it perfectly.

The only track on the album that lets it down is ‘Retired’ and although there is nothing wrong with it musically, it just doesn’t stand out compared to the other tracks on Gambit and can be seen as “filler”. If the band where to have missed out this track or written another track similar to the likes of ‘Nine of Hearts’ or Just Visiting’ then Gambit would have been a flawless album, but it’s the lack of ideas and interest on this one song that puts a dampener on the rest of the album.

With brilliant artwork, (that looks like Alien vs. Predator in chess form) and a selection of diverse and balls out rock songs. Gambit is an album that you need in your collection, and hopefully it is a magic carpet release that will transport The Senton Bombs into the big league! [9/10]

1) Experiment
2) Just Visting
3) Hooked
4) Do Your Job
5) Highflyer
6) Retired
7) Sick Speed
8) Gambit
9) Nine of Hearts
10) Yellow Rebels
11) Jackals