Ballet Bag - Rubella Ballet (Dark Entries)

Title: Ballet Bag

Artist: Rubella Ballet

Label: Dark Entries

Cat Number: DE-151

Genre: Punk

A1: T

A2: Belfast

A3: A Dream Of Honey

A4: Newz

A5: Slant & Slide

A6: Me

A7: Blues

A8: Exit

B1: Krak Talk

B2: Me (Peel Session)

B3: Ballet Dance (PS)

B4: Belfast (PS)

B5: T (PS)

B6: Slant & Slide (PS)

B7: Exit (PS)

Well this takes me back. I could be in Vinnie’s, or my own, room in the years after having left school. Another world, one when even though faced with similar political questions, with the dire threat of nuclear war hovering over us, (something which I never thought would happen, btw), was in many ways a happier, much more optimistic one. Listening to post punk nowadays is very much a blast from the cold war, and Rubella Ballet, with their classic sounding grunginess, guitars crashing together in some sort of transistor-insprired mayhem, and the flat, but shouty vocals, typified a certain amateurish but charming aspect of it. (Not just "it" but everything, to an extent). Except for opener ‘Emotional Blackmail’, a Siouxsie-influenced stomp and for my money the best thing here, and ‘T’, nothing, clocks in at over four minutes. ‘Newz At Ten’ barely makes it over a sixty seconds, while most tracks come in at between two and three. Small, condensed shots of unrefined energy that serve to define a nostalgia which was, in those days, of an age yet to come.