The Best Records I Heard in 2015:

7. The Ethical Debating Society –

New Sense LP

(Oddbox)

My disjointed thoughts on this one were explored at length here back in September. The text in the extract below has been amended slightly for the purposes of clarity and grammatical correctitude.

“For all the glib comparisons I’m throwing around though, it’s worth stressing that there is absolutely no ‘imitation game’ business going on with EDS. Very much the polar opposite of the kind of band who exist primarily to launch reenactments of the members’ record collections, they seem determined to sound like no one except themselves, and their corresponding embrace of what for want of a better term we’ll call ‘the DIY ethic’ is crucial.

Though they’ve captured a fantastic sound on this record [..] such technical accomplishments are off-set by the band’s oft-stated belief that everyone can/should do this. Not an original sentiment by any means in the realm of punk/indie/whatever, but one that comes across here in the very bones of the recording & performance.

Like all good punk records, there is no mystery or unseen wizardry to veil the band’s methodology. What an eager young listener hears here is exactly what they hear when their own band goes into the practice room, overlaid with a few years worth of commitment and hard work. And what an older, more jaded listener (hi!) gets meanwhile is the renewed realisation that there’s no magic formula or secret code to the way guitar lines crash together and drums roll and stutter to light whatever fire it is that illuminates our favourite records; the magic is all just there waiting for some people with the guts to pick it up and run with it.

As noted, Ethical Debating Society won’t save the world, flay the greedy rich or tilt the tilt axis away from imminent self-immolation - just as no isolated pocket of individuals can, or can be expected to. But as small-on-global-scale gestures go, I think they’ve done their best, and for giving us one of this ugly new era’s first and most definitive blasts of a kind of music that speaks to a hope beyond endless benefit gigs for no-hoper splinter groups, and that might carry the potential to get us reasonable, everyday people stoked up with a bit of fire and excitement as we trudge through whatever travails face us day by day, they deserve all the ham-fisted plaudits I can throw at them. As far as punk rock goes, it’s just as it should be.”

This remains a great album. My second favourite cover art of the year too.

Listen and buy via bandcamp.