Having graced Blackpool’s Rebellion Festival five times and with an 11th UK tour scheduled for June, Zooparty have only gone and dropped an A-Bomb of a new album entitled Lardass. Don’t let the title fool you into thinking there’s a display of comedy on show, as Zooparty specialise in catchy pop punk, and I ain’t referring to the likes of Blink 182. This Swedish ensemble are more akin to The Bouncing Souls and pogo friendly tunes are their forte.

The title track sums up everything you need to know about Zooparty in a 2 minute and 40 second blast. It’s all schoolyard chants over straight-up melodic punk rock, right down the vocal coda of “na-na-na-na-naaaa- na.” You want high energy singalong stuff? You got it!

As with previous outings, special guests are aplenty with Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols offering bass duties on You Don’t Know Me and Everything I Failed To Be. Brian James of The Damned also adds licks to the latter as well as on Wake Up. If that’s not enough then mid 80s to early 90s KISS guitarist Bruce Kulic takes the lead on Hardcore. One thing’s for sure – vocalist Erik Petterson’s little black book has paid dividends. Production kudos must go to Chips Kiesbye too. The Nomads, Hellacopters, Michael Monroe knob twiddler makes the whole thing sound huge.

If you like your punk with a pop edge and relish the classic Fat Wreck Chords period, then with these 12 infectious slabs, Zooparty may well have created your favourite album of 2018. Pogo, pogo! Ginge Knievil

 Check out Zooparty here