The Masonics: Medway Beat Masters Get Loose With "Obermann Rides Again" - New Album Release

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MASTERS OF THE MEDWAY BEAT made famous by Mr Billy Childish, this is the group that in our view should be the more famous one – with their more original style of raw and tender rock’n’roll songsmithery. Renowned drum wizard Bruce Brand played alongside Childish in the Pop Rivets back in the late 1970s and both he and gruffly charming singer/guitarist Mickey Hampshire were both in the Milkshakes in the early 1980s. (In fact, it was actually Mickey & the Milkshakes originally!) Bass thumper John Gibbs, meanwhile, cut his jib in his younger years in near-legendary Scottish group, The Kaisers.

This new limited edition – 500 copies only – album of muscular British rock’n’roll from this widely celebrated beat power trio comes trampling merrily over a swathe of garage rock pretenders. While many young groups clutch equipment of equal quality (almost) and vintage, none of them have put in the years that these chaps have – themselves and their gear have been pushed well past breaking point over the years but their energy is far from dimmed. Their vast experience means that The Masonics have built a solid reputation on live shows across Europe and around the UK that delight teen twisters and pop purists alike.

That reputation was more enough for them, as they themselves put it, to “allow those whippersnapper colonial upstarts The White Stripes to close a series of performances for us in the early part of this century, during their maiden voyage to this great country of ours”. While other musical copyists and johnny-come-latelys continue to come and go, The Masonics continue to plough their furrow, in a never ending quest to make the perfect beat-pop album and delivering passionate performances to excitable audiences.

Recorded at Ransombe Studios (regular home to Billy Childish as well as The Wave Pictures), the all-new recordings on this, their ninth album, 14 slices of suave and rocking pop beat nuggets show that the group have not lost their merciless instinct for touch­ing, simple, timeless rock’n’roll melodies and lyrics. The band performs with verve and precision, on record and on stage, always giving their followers their money’s worth.

This new release will soon be followed up by a limited vinyl and download releases from The Masonics’ back catalogue, starting with Outside Looking In and the singles compilation plus downloads of the entirety of their decades of releases. Download the Obermann Rides Again