“Maybe I’m losing the plot, as they say. But I disagree; I’m just beginning to see the plot” –Adam Stone, 2023
Yes, Pound Land are back with Mugged, and you only have to glance through the track list and see “Spawn of Thatcher” and “Shish Doner Mix Apocalypse” to see that (un)fortunately not much has changed, despite the album being recorded in a real studio this time!
The instrumentation sounds beefier but the aesthetics are retained, you get a monotonous, gritty punk backdrop fed through a jazz night terror. As droney as it sounds, Mugged is packed with chaotic depth that hypnotically swirls around the fever dream lyrics. The album certainly sounds great, but still feels as filthy as Violence.
The unapologetically poetic vocal performance is still burning as bright as ever. Avoiding mundane attacks on the government and large corporations that have been done a million times over, Adam Stone says it how he sees it. On paper it could be perceived as inane ramblings of a mad man, but in reality Mugged is more like an observational “day in the life of” providing the bleak tales of the frustrating modern day.
Pound Land have once again made themselves impossible to criticise; producing an album driven out of raw emotion and encapsulating those feelings about the subject perfectly, every word and instrument complements one another, resulting in Mugged being everything it was intended to be; satisfying yet unsettling, and indiscreetly real.
Jake Hancke – 08/03/2024
Mugged is available from Cruel Nature Records, with orders for Vinyl open now until 18th March 2024 (there won’t be any available after!), and the digital release on 16th April 2024.
The Cauteriser 