Andy Blade

Cleopatra Records’ long-running love affair with Andy Blade and Eater is old news now. But even we reckon they’ve out-done themselves on their latest album, as founding frontman Blade looks back to his own days in the punk rock trenches, and wonders what all those other bands’ hits might have sounded like, had Eater got hold of them first.

He calls the album Duplication. But it’s a long, long way from that.

Duplication itself lands on October 31. Ahead of that, though, the first single “Breakdown” is released today, and it takes us all back to a very specific time and place, to the night in November 1976 when Eater played their first gig with the Buzzcocks.

“Breakdown,” says Blade, “was a song that stuck in my head immediately. I loved its jerky delivery and lyric-spitting vibe and the fact it was so short. There was a lyric sheet of the song in the dressing room that I sneaked a look at. ‘These aren’t song lyrics,’ I thought – ‘this is a fucking essay!” – it had so many hard to scan, extra length verses with long words/phrases I’d never heard before at just 15 years old.

“I thought – ‘Now I understand what the essence of punk rock is – super fast, but also intelligent’.”

SINGLE: https://orcd.co/eater_breakdown

Ten songs make up the album, and to call it punk rock’s greatest hits is almost an understatement. We are locked wholly into 1976-1977, with The Ramones’“Beat On The Brat” and the Damned’s “New Rose” also hearkening back to that earlier year. “New Rose,” in fact, was the first British punk single ever released, and Eater’s “Outside View” debut, also revisited here, was the third. (The Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK” fell in between.)

From thereon, Generation X, the Saints, the Clash, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers and the Only Ones flash past, alongside a glorious retake on what is probably the most “punk” song of them all, The Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen”… released to coincide with Her Majesty’s silver jubilee, and accompanied by so many tidal waves of media condemnation… has any record ever caused so much fuss?

“The tracks on Duplication are essentially my favourite songs out of the seminal punk classics,” explains Blade, “before punk rock became somewhat homogenized as a formula. Whilst it is a covers album – it is not just a covers album.

“There is a difference because I was ‘there’ with my band during the explosive year of 1977 – these songs mean something to me in a visceral sense. There’s a spirit to the tracks that seems to come alive as we rehearsed them. Most importantly, however, Duplication was great fun to create and I think, as a result, it is – I hope – great fun to listen to.”

CD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=eater+duplication
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/eater_duplication

Track listing