Speedo EP Review

With the passionately played old-school, First Wave Ska and the creatively designed cover of red, green and gold, you’d be forgiven for thinking Moisty Atsushi was leading a reggae band.  I mean, most people aren’t aware that Ska preceded Reggae and not the other way around.

This is the Ska your mum listened to in the 60s.  Ska was cool for a different reason back then.  It wasn’t just a tool of rebellion against the establishment and your parents, who were only affected by it because their angsty 90s teens were beating a once great genre to death.

This is Ska, just not as my generation knew it.  It’s more mellow.  More chilled.  Less ego driven.  The band are performing as a band, meshing together to make music instead of competing.

I’m more used to the energetic caffeine-amped pop-ska from the 90s.  The kind popularised by American college students in movies and bands like Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and perennial favourites Sublime and No Doubt.

This album doesn’t sound American, or pop, like those Third Wave Ska bands I knew.  It sounds authentically Jamaican; reggae and rocksteady, peace and the herb.  The guitar licks are bluesy, the keyboard is jazzy and the sultry sax is an uplifting lead instrument, not just a rhythm keeping device.

Speedo is a good easy listen on this unseasonably hot day here in Palmy.  I suggest listening to “Sound of the Ska” and “Kingsland the Great”, the tracks performed with the Mini Moisties, before reading up how old the Mini Moisties actually are.  I must say they perform amazingly well for their age.