Punk pioneer/Eater main-man, Andy Blade’s 7th solo album and follow up to 2024’s critically acclaimed & heavily rotated, Sparks bros endorsed “Being Alive Is Fun”. It is imbued with the usual left-of-centre Blade-ism’s & themes: star maps, UFO’s & a slightly twisted nod to tragic 70’s heroine Karen Carpenter. You get what you deserve with Blade, and with Tiny Specks you are rewarded with a rich code to decipher at your leisure. Most of all, however, it is all about the quality of his songwriting.

Opening track ‘Karen Is The Drummer’ (featuring Blade’s regular singing collaborator - PseudoPomp’s Katerina Sharkova) seems unsettlingly self-explanatory, but all does not seem well in the Carpenter M.O.R world - ‘It’s just her & her brother & her folks indifference to that girl’.

Occasional Dinosaur Jr vocalist Tiffany Anders gives ‘I’m Not Myself’ a poppy but eerie nuance. PollyPikPocketz’s Myura Amara pops up on the short but very sweet ‘About That’. Matilda Scotland, Quick Romance’s uber-cool punky-chanteuse - adds her Gen Z aura to the summery ‘I Like It When You’re Happy’.

Former Generation X guitarist Bob ‘Derwood’ Andrews, with whom Blade has worked with consistently of late, once again features heavily on ‘Tiny Specks’… Like with Katerina Sharkova’s voice, Derwood guitar lines interweave with Blade’s honeyed vocal as though they made for each other.

‘This Place’ is another key track, capturing the claustrophobic-genocidal mood of what has been taking place in Gaza/Palestine for over two years now, and counting. ‘This is not so much a protest song as it is the noise in my head’.

If John Lydon is the Widow Twanky of Punk, and Billy Idol, its Elvis, then Andy Blade must surely be the Sinatra of Punk.

1. CLOSE TO YOU + KAREN IS THE DRUMMER
2. I LIKE IT WHEN YOU’RE HAPPY
3. I’M SORRY I’M MENTALLY ILL
4. MUD
5. THIS PLACE
6. ABOUT THAT
7. I’M NOT MYSELF
8. TINY SPECKS
9. THE CEILING
10. FAT PIG
11. I’M SORRY (DERWOOD MIX)
12. YOU KEEP SAYING + CLOSE TO YOU