Next Weekend – Bilk (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Bilk is back out doing what it does best. And what it does best is deliver short, sharp salvos of trashy street punk energy woven through infectious and highly charged indie blasts. Three eighteen year old Essex boys singing about exactly what eighteen year old Essex boys should be singing about, that is falling out of one glorious weekend of drunken chaos with the vow to do it all again once the working week is done.

Part social commentary, part pure celebration, Bilk is the perfect successor to the likes of Mike Skinner’s Street’s in providing the background groove to young lives in the modern age and echos with the same visceral sound that The Libertines found kicking about the backstreets of London where it had lain dormant since the punks packed up and headed off down new musical paths. But that was all a long time ago and a new generation has come through looking for their own soundtrack to urban life, to lost weekends, to one-night stands, to letting off steam, to irresponsibility, frustration and social carnage. Next Weekend proves once again that Bilk is the perfect band for the job.