Chubby and the Gang are swinging into spring with two awesome new songs: “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice” and “Life’s Lemons”! This double A-sided 7” has their first new tunes since last year's epic romp, Speed Kills! They continue to make their own hardcore sound that blends high velocity Pub Rock, Blues and Doo Wop. Or you could just call it what it really is: Rock n Roll!!! Limited Edition of 2000.

Our take: Latest single from this UK band that seems to be blowing up. In case you haven’t been keeping up with Chubby’s gang, the group features familiar faces from London’s NWOBHC scene, but they’re not a hardcore band. They’re a pop band, but they play like a hardcore band. That’s but one way in which they remind me of Fucked Up; Chubby and the Gang sound to me like that period when Fucked Up seemed to have a real Undertones fixation, but if you swapped out the Undertones with Wilko Johnson and Dr. Feelgood. It’s anthemic shit. So much so that it’s started to catch on outside the hardcore scene. Pitchfork put the album on their Best of 2020 list and after starting out on Static Shock Records (a familiar name to Sorry State regulars) they’ve moved up to Partisan Records, home of Idles and Fontaines D.C., whose music I’m not familiar with but seem like proper indie bands to me. Anyway, you get an anthem in the band’s usual style on the a-side, but on the b-side we have a loungy track that isn’t punk at all. Here Chubby & the Gang don’t play like a hardcore band; they show a different side of the band, sort of like how the Buzzcocks’ “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” single showcased their more Can-informed material on the b-side. Will the hipsters appreciate it or is this just for the punk nerds?