The Mutt's Nuts Chubby and the Gang

• 1 The Mutt's Nuts 01:49
• 2 It's Me Who'll Pay 02:16
• 3 Coming Up Tough 03:55
• 4 On The Meter 02:43
• 5 Beat That Drum 02:15
• 6 Pressure 03:36
• 7 Take Me Home To London 03:30
• 8 Life On The Bayou 03:43
• 9 White Rags 03:59
• 10 Overachiever 01:43
• 11 Someone's Gunna Die 01:36
• 12 Getting Beat Again (Eppu Normaali) 01:49
• 13 Life's Lemons 03:15
• 14 Lightning Don't Strike Twice 03:09
• 15 I Hate The Radio 03:34
• Total Runtime 42:52

Info for The Mutt's Nuts

West London five-piece Chubby and the Gang are balanced by two energies – a casual “fuck it” on one side, an active “fuck off” on the other. For every moment of punk imperfection, there’s an intricate flurry of detail. For every enraged statement about modern life as war, there’s a lyric like “Hello heartbreak, my old friend” that catches you off guard. Made up of musicians from across the consistently thriving and criminally overlooked UK hardcore scene (ft. The Chisel, Big Cheese and more), Chubby and the Gang marinate its characteristic speed and sick-of-it-all energy in a mixture of 50s pop sounds. The result is a prickly take on the older, more melodic genres that punk derives from, chewing them up and spitting them out into something mangled but revitalised.

Fronted by Charlie Manning Walker (aka Chubby Charles) and backed by Tom ‘Razor’ Hardwick, Meg Brooks Mills, Ethan Stahl and Joe McMahon (aka the Gang), the band tell stories of modern London.

Chubby and the Gang

Chubby and the Gang
are a West London punk troupe comprised of members of various bands associated with The New Wave of British Hardcore, among them Violent Reaction, Abolition, Big Cheese and more. The band – helmed by local electrician Charlie Manning – developed a cult following in the UK, largely rooted in the cross-pollinating nature of the punk scene.

At the start of 2020, before the world turned to ash, several US publications began running glowing reviews of Speed Kills, the breakneck debut album from Chubby and the Gang, a West London punk troupe comprised of members of various bands associated with The New Wave of British Hardcore, among them Violent Reaction, Abolition, Big Cheese and more. At the time, the band – helmed by local electrician Charlie Manning – had developed a cult following in the UK, largely rooted in the cross-pollinating nature of the punk scene, select shows including dates with Sheer Mag and an impending, last-minute US run with Royal Hounds. Speed Kills, produced by Jonah Falco of Fucked Up, would go on to be called “the best punk-pop LP in recent memory” by Paste Magazine, a debut that “comes alive with liberating energy” in an 8.0 review from Pitchfork and full of “massive barroom gang choruses, power chords at breakneck tempos, rock spelled R-A-W-K and visceral gratification” as Stereogum put it. Impressive going for a band at the time with no publicist, no big budget label backing and no industry clout, per se, beyond increasingly fervent underground support.

It led to Paste asking the question: “How did a fringe British hardcore punk band with no major industry backing end up with a highly-anticipated US headline tour and a widely-praised album from several major music outlets?” It’s a good question but the answer, of course, lies in the music. Speed Kills is an ebullient listen: 12 blink-and-you’ll-miss-em shots of ferocious energy that last a little over 25 minutes in total and come alive through a concoction of hardcore, Oi!, pub rock, doo wop and blues. Look beneath the unrelentingly fun surface, however, and these are songs of deep substance and political conscience with a precise sense of time and place. See: the West London anthem ‘All Along the Uxbridge Road’, the ode to Tottenham hard men ‘Bruce Grove Bullies’ or the album’s transcendent closer ‘Grenfell Forever’, which beautifully offers a tribute to the victims of the titular fire while spearing governmental incompetence in the disaster’s handling.

It’s perhaps Falco who says it best though: “Speed Kills is the debut full length from London's loudest breakout band Chubby and the Gang. Beginning as a humble pipedream of West London electrician Charlie Manning, who spent years finding his way through the London punk and hardcore scene, the album is the manifestation of a musical mind marinating in hard punk, pub rock, blues, and doo-wop. From the sneering eternity of ‘All Along the Uxbridge Road,’ to the Hammond Organ smeared ‘Bruce Grove Bullies’ - the songs will have you reaching for your London A to Z and trying your hardest not to spill your pint.”

Following the quietly blossoming success of Speed Kills earlier this year, Chubby and the Gang now find a new home on Partisan Records (IDLES, Fontaines D.C., Laura Marling) who reissue the album on November 20th, 2020, in remastered form with the unreleased cut ‘Union Dues’ included to boot and with new music on the horizon. While any joyous homecoming to the live stage on UK shores may have to wait a little longer, in the meantime there’s no better tonic to these turbulent times than Speed Kills: a record ready to rise above its scene and ensure the next time Chubby and co hit the road, we’ll all see it coming a mile off.

This album contains no booklet.