Obsessive Compulsive – “Seculo Seculorum”

Manchester rockers Obsessive Compulsive are four mates who have had a career longer than most who’ve graced the cover of Kerrang! yet they’re still touring the UK in battered transit vans, sleeping on floors while scraping together the money to pay for petrol and record their own albums. This is a group who do it for the love of their band and no other reason. Sure, for effort alone, they deserve all the success in the world but, you know what, listening to Seculo Seculorum, you get the impression, these punk rockers would be happy with enough money to pay for petrol and a hot meal at the end of the night, if it meant they got the chance to rock out in front of a room full of smiling punters.

And this work ethic shines through on each and every track on this their second full album. Raw and punky, they may get lumped in with the Grrrl scene but don’t let that put you off. Songs like “Sick Sick Sick” and “Stamp Your Own Path” are songs born out of a life doing things the hard way, they’re songs built on frustration with the tone for the entire album set as vocalist Kelli snaps “I’m sick of the same old shit…” within five seconds of opening track “Sick Sick Sick” sparking this album into life.

Boiling over with a frustrated angst in her voice, Kelli is one of those vocalists that simply reeks of attitude. From her sneering delivery on “Nail In My Coffin” to her drawling vocals on “Soulsucker”, this is a woman with as versatile a range as any other female on the scene. The band back her powerful, haunting vocals with a sound that is equally as raw and driven by frustration. Not just punk rock, not just grungy, not just hard rock – songs like “Fight Or Flight” take elements of all of those sounds and melt them all into one ball of angst, attitude and energy.

Bands go on about attitude all of the time but very few bands walk it like they talk it. It’s not hard to see that Obsessive Compulsive are the real deal with Kelli Compulsive summing their ethics, their life, their band, and this album up in one line on the brilliant “Fight or Flight” – “This is hardcore. Knuckles white. I’m ready for this fight!”

Track Listing:

01. Sick Sick Sick
02. Regurgitate
03. Stamp Your Own Path
04. Jardim Gramacho
05. Nail In My Coffin
06. Float
07. Soul Sucker
08. Things Clean And Unclean
09. Fight Or Flight
10. No Logo
11. Swallow The Sound

Run Time: 43:51
Release Date: June 24, 2013

Check out the song “The Darkened Path of Sadness”