Tenplusone – Self Titled CD/Download (Tenplusone)

Somewhere in my man cave I have a demo from this lot from about 10 years ago. I saw them live at a local club and was suitably impressed by their energetic, melodic SoCal style punk to pick up a copy of the CD, which has sadly disappeared somewhere amongst the 100s of other demo CDs I’ve picked up over the years. It’s taken the band a long time (and several line-ups changes) to finally get around to releasing their first full length album; so have the South Wales trio lived up to their early promise? Well the first thing that hits me on opening track ‘A Lot To Say’ is that there’s a much more aggressive edge to the sound, with former Shrapnel/Sick Livers bass-meister David Joseph bringing an almost Rancid-esque level of fret board shenanigans to the track. ‘Run Don’t Walk’ is closer to the bands earlier SoCal sound, but think Adolescents rather than NoFX, with maybe a touch of Stiff Little Fingers? It’s certainly catchier than a cold. Tenplusone are a band that are happy to wear their influences on their collective sleeve and yet comfortably inject their own DNA into the mix, such as on ‘Decisions Final’ which starts off sounding like GBH’s ‘Mantrap’ before veering off into a shamelessly melodic bit of tunage. It’s a formula the band stick with throughout the 11 tracks on this debut opus (yes I see what you’ve done there you wags) and the self-titled closing track is a fittingly spirited finish. Despite the harder edge, Tenplusone  have retained their melodic chops to produce a well above average slice of punk rock – which just goes to show that some things are worth waiting for. Ian Pickens

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