Album Review: Kepi Ghoulie And The Copyrights – Re-Animation Festival

Tribute albums are nothing new, a brief internet search of bands such as the Ramones reveals that bands covering their favourite songs, and even their favourite albums in full, is nothing new, but what we have here is a re-recording by the founder member of the Groovie Ghoulies who, along with The Copyrights, has re-recorded and revitalised the Groovie Ghoulies 1997 album, Re-Animation Festival. The 22nd anniversary of an album’s release isn’t usually celebrated, Kepi Ghoulie is still alive and well and The Copyrights are thriving, both as a band and with their solo projects, so why re-record this album, well the answer would seem to be, why the hell not?

In recruiting The Copyrights to back him up Kepi Ghoulie has released a revved up version of one of his best loved albums, everything about this seems to have a more muscular approach than the original album. With the majority of occasions when classic album’s are revisited when you get a feel of creeping disappointment before you hit the midway point, this is not the case with this track by track run through of Re-Animation Festival. The raw lo-fo charms of the the original album has been replaced with a sleek and polished wall of sound, the result is twelve cuts of buzzsaw pop punk that is borne of Ramones.

This isn’t so much a Re-Animation Festival as a recreation, Re-animation Festival has been given a fresh lease of life, something that I can’t remember thinking about any other recent revisitations or re-recordings of classic material. The Copyrights and Kepi Ghoulie would seem to be a match made in heaven, as good as this welcome return to the Re-Animation Festival is what I’d really like to hear in the wake of this album is an original collaboration between the two outfits.

Kepi Ghoulie can be found on Facebook here and The Copyrights Bandcamp is here

Re-Animation Festival is available via Eccentric Pop Records here