Album Review: Weekend Recovery – False Company

In music, there’s a temptation to start looking for movements or to make artificial connections between bands that share certain characteristics. Let’s deal with that first. Yes, Weekend Recovery are a ballsy female-fronted ‘punk’ band with a strong work ethic and a DIY approach. But to define them only thus would diminish what they – and the other bands you could describe that way – do. So let’s reset that, and start this review properly with the necessary omission: Weekend Recovery are a ballsy punk band with a strong work ethic and a DIY approach who happen to have, in False Company, produced an album that transcends genre and should place the band front and centre in the ranks of contemporary British music culture. They really are that good.

To create an album like this, there must first be songs. From the first listen, the strength of the material stands out. There’s clearly a very finely tuned songcraft at work in the writing process that touches on so many cultural waypoints. From the menacing throb of opener Radiator onwards, Weekend Recovery romp through familiar-sounding soundscapes without even veering close to sounding derivative. In the heavier tracks there’s definitely a transatlantic feel that nods in acknowledgement to The Runaways, or maybe a turbocharged Suzi Quatro (I Can’t Let Go, Zealot and Going Nowhere). Such comparisons are, however, are distractions because Weekend Recovery is a band with bags of personality and a willingness to swoop in and out of styles to fit with what they want to achieve.

The real surprise in amongst this vivid gallery of raucous and at times stomping guitar punk pop is the gentler Surprise, which opens with a cascade of gorgeous chorused guitar before morphing into a driving quiet/loud/quiet ballad. This is mainstream radio-friendly guitar pop rock music that could easily be a mega-selling hit for the likes of Kelly Clarkson. But it isn’t Kelly Clarkson, it’s our very own Weekend Recoveryand we should cherish them.

A great sounding, prolific band on top form, full of energy with great songs flawlessly executed. A fantastic live outfit too, they’re already in the sights of tastemakers. And rightly so. False Company comes with a massive thumbs up from us. Almost perfect.

“False Company” can be pre-ordered via Criminal Records