There are few bands that have spoken directly to my soul in the same way that Blood For Blood did. Somehow, they seemed to know what I was thinking and feeling and managed to perfectly articulate all of the chaos, frustration, rage, loneliness and pain that flowed through me unabated and over the course of six albums, Blood For Blood became a cherished and much needed companion. 

They were a nihilistic voice in the wilderness that reached out and made me realise, possibly for the first time in my life, that I wasn’t alone, that it was okay to be mad at how fucked up the world, the system and life were and knowing that I was no longer a minority of one was just fine and dandy with me.  It didn’t make things better, but it made them slightly more bearable and in the cold, harsh reality of the daily grind, it might not have been much, but the reassurance and comfort that Blood For Blood offered meant everything to me. And then, just like that, they were gone.

Maybe I’d have felt their loss more profoundly if they hadn’t left behind a legacy of unruly anthems that offered hope to an abandoned generation and the dreamers and under-achievers that society had forgotten and cast aside. Maybe it would have hit me harder if Rob Lind, the chief architect of Blood for Blood, hadn’t then poured all of his creativity into Ramallah, the band who became everything that BFB had been and the band who after what seems like an eternity, are finally back. 

The Last Gasp of Street Rock ‘n’Roll is the record that both Blood For Blood and Ramallah always promised to deliver. Like Blood For Blood channelling Social Distortion, this is how dirty, street level rock ‘n’ roll should sound. Riddled with righteous venom, bereft of the sort of optimism that the mainstream so desperately clings to and packed to bursting with a clutch of disorderly and immediate tunes, The Last Gasp… will kick start your black heart, drag you out of the gutter and make you realise that no matter how hard life hits you, you can take it and laugh right in that dark hearted bitch’s face. I’m mad as hell, but thanks to Ramallah, I don’t have to take it anymore… Tim Cundle