Popes of Chillitown - CD collection

[originally posted July 7th 2023 on cohost]

All 4 Popes of Chillitown albums featuring a signed copy of their new album Take a Picture! These guys have been (one of) my favourite current ska band(s) for a while so when they new album was announced I just couldn't resist getting the bundle of all 4 albums.

All their stuff is fantastic, but if you listen to their albums chronologically you'll notice them getting increasingly louder and more unhinged, which I'm very much in favour of. While I consider Wisdom Teeth off of their second album To the Moon to be one of the greatest modern ska songs, their third album Work Hard, Play Hard, See You In the Graveyard gets overall more aggressive and experimental, with louder guitars, more of a skacore leaning, ocassional electronics and even ocassional screaming (see Prang, for example), and making their overall most coherent full album in my opinion. Now, Take a Picture takes all of the chaotic and experimental aspects of the previous album, and turns it up to 11, it's absolutely a wild listen. When its first single Crashmat dropped in May with its strong influence of DnB and dub, I called them the Enter Shikari of ska. These guys just have an incredible energy, seemingly endless creativity and incredible talent and care for writing catchy and unique songs.

Initially I regretted not also buying a shirt when I ordered the CDs (I love the design of Take a Picture and would love to wear that), but now I'm glad I didn't, cause the package got hit with additional customs charges, and if I had another 25€ t-shirt on top of the CDs and the shipping, the total money I woud've had to pay would've probably snowballed into 100+. I'll just have to hope they leave the UK at some point and do a tour in Germany (please I need to see these guys live and also buy a t-shirt)