Citizen Fish/Leftover Crack, Deadline

One CD plus two great bands equals nothing but politics-filled punk/ska fun, doesn’t it? Citizen Fish and Leftover Crack. Two great bands, one split album, expectations are high. 15 tracks with Citizen Fish covering Choking Victims’ “Money” and Leftover Crack’s “Clear Channel,” whilst Leftover Crack covers Citizen Fish’s “Supermarket Song” and the Subhumans classic “Reason for Existence.”

Citizen Fish has been around for awhile; if you didn’t know, the band includes crust punk icons Dick and Phil from the Subhumans, so there was some massive hype created on this album due to the two well-known crustifying ska/punk band members. Citizen Fish continues its ska-core stylings on the first seven tracks, weighing in with the skanked-out sounds of British anarchic-punk. “Meltdown” and “Join the Dots” are essentially punk with horns, while “Working on the Inside” puts more emphasis on off-beat guitars, although both directions are simply a vehicle for the act’s political discourse. Although their intentions are in the right place, it’s nothing that we have already heard. “Join the Dots” rips on the CIA drug trade connections; “Working on the Inside” refute the notion of taking down the system by way of interior rot, and “Getting Used to It” is yet another diatribe against the corporate-run zombie lifestyle.

Leftover Crack hops in on track eight and picks up where Citizen Fish left off, with crusty ska-punk and a whole lot of righteous indignation. The intro, “Baby Punchers,” kicks off with Dave Dictor of punk legends MDC and clumsily writes off everyone from the cops to rich kids, only to let Jello Biafra step in and rants against everything that isn’t left of pure socialism. The World 4 peace punk message gets lost in a sea of confusing post-apocalyptic imagery, but the ecological warning in the “Life Causes Cancer” is straightforward enough not to lose the point.

Forget all the MTV-ish, poppy, kiddie-style mall punk that has taken over today; although Citizen Fish and Leftover Crack might have had better releases prior to this one, this split is a reminder that the underground still lives.