Sheffield 5 piece Seamonsters have built up a reputation for bouncing pop punk which has a real retro early 80’s feel to it. I can picture sneaking a tape recording of a John Peel The Seamonsters session off the radio – the Spotify generation have no idea of how complicated that could be.

The Seamonster’s latest Blondie Plastic Letters channelled release, How To Be Famous, is 3 minutes of pure spiky pleasure, packed with a killer clunking riff, rolling and bouncing beat and the honey coated barb wire vocal of Naomi Mann. I particularly like the little undercurrent of 1960’s Doors style psych beat going on in the background which pulls the track firmly into that box labelled cool and interesting.

The lyrics of the song warn of the toxic environment of social media, and reminds me of Andy Warhol’s prophesy that we will all be famous for 15 minutes. Alas, it seems our fame comes with the pressure of looking good, being seen to be doing enviable things; but with none of the cash. While I dabble with Twitter and Insta, I do find the all intensive nature of Facebook where you can feel your life has to be open to critical scrutiny, to be too strip lighted and naked for my taste. The Seamonsters lay that world bare here. Thank God I’m too old to have to practice that perfect coy pout.

The Seamonsters have recently completed around a dozen gigs over the past couple of months (including supporting Jimmy Eat World at the Leadmill) and only have a couple of Scottish gigs in March lined up as we hit press (or rather “press send”). Look out for more gigs

Chris R

Photo credit Andy von Pip