Make It Better Later - Music By Numbers

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 6 / 9 / 2007

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Review

This band could teach that Axl Rose, who used to be in the "real" Guns n’ Roses all those years ago, a thing or two. While the aforementioned Axl has been working on an album with his ‘band’ for the last 75 years, this York/London based band, (although in my mind they are of no fixed abode and are indeed punk rock pirates who just sleep wherever they pass out), decided to get together and book some gigs so they had something to work towards. Good thinking ! how long would you give it? A couple of months with them playing some covers maybe ? Nah, try two weeks, and the covers ? No, why bother with such nonsense ? These guys are a testimony to hard graft. Within the two weeks they had begun to get some songs together and since then they have shown little sign of slowing up. Playing gigs throughout the UK, the band have honed their eclectic brand of punk rock-infusing violins and sing- a-long sea shanties with superb musicianship and a great sense of humour. This is a band who know how to have fun. They confess on ‘Filler song’ that “This is the filler song/so please don’t sing along/it’s just here to make the set that bit longer” . ‘No Credit’ is a fine contemporary love song explaining how maybe, just maybe that girl you’ve been texting does not hate you. She has merely run out of phone credt. They have the quality of song and performance to make such songs worthwhile, rather than just appealing to the lowest common denominator. With a sound similar to the likes of MXPX and Mad Caddies, Make It Better Later have here an album full of songs that would be great live as they have all the energy and catchiness of all the great pop punk bands currently out there. Their sense of humour adds to their general appeal but another thing they do throughout the album without fault is time changes. Many songs include changes of pace in the song which add much to their general feel. My personal favourite tracks on the album include ‘Clive’ which has an excellent dancey chorus with short sharp shouting on it that you can bop along nicely to. ‘The Legend of Ninja’ is the one though that really clinched it for me. I didn’t study English anywhere past G.C.S.E but do consider myself fairly literate. The two words that, however, fell out of my mouth as I heard the chorus on this and I feel sum it up best are “------- brilliant”. This is a song about a Ninja, (obviously), who comes out at night and has no only a fantastic slow to insanely structure complete with a jazz-esque breakdown near the end, but a chorus that is pure genius and will make you laugh and rock as they sing “Ninja, Ninja, n n n ninja” very, very fast. Absolutely brilliant. And if that doesn’t tempt you, how about a band who manage a satirical song about a certain president by likening him to a pirate and by throwing in a verse of “What shall we do with the drunken sailor”. Yes, you’re tempted, aren’t you ? I look very forward to sharing some rum, and other assorted pirate themed things when Make It Better pillage a bar near me.

Track Listing:-

1 Headlines and Lies
2 Guys Can't Dance
3 Eric
4 No Credit
5 So Indifferent
6 Soul Train
7 Clive
8 Filler Song
9 Better In His Head
10 The Legend of Ninja
11 One Too Many
12 Never Grow Up
13 No More Stopping Me
14 The Pirate Song