Album Review: Rebuke - Wouldworks

European punks, Rebuke are back with their sophomore attempt, ‘Wouldworks’ in an attempt to get a grip on the European punk scene. What they have here is an album that in all honesty is competent enough, but not good enough to stand out from the crowd.

The whole album goes along quite a slow pace, you might be forgiven for not sharing that view with opener ‘Bartenders and Tarbenders’ but from there on in, nothing much grabs your attention. They describe themselves as drawing influences from Bad Religion and NOFX, but all I get here is Sum 41-lite from their 'Does This Look Infected' era with just a slightly, and I emphasize that bigger hint of punk.

That being said, there are some decent melodies here, especially later on in the album ‘His Brittle Faith’ is one of my favourites, the harmonies are spot on and ‘Wings III: Driving The Point Home’ is a great little instrumental that serves up an atmosphere that’s quite brilliant.

However, songs like ‘History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, We Repeat History’ and ‘Death Defining Stunts’ for me aren’t that great and let the album down. They’re poor attempts at mixing hardcore and punk and are just irritating and ‘Take To The Seas’ is just downright embarrassing, taking its introduction vocal melody from something that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Overall this is about as middle of the road as any album can get. It’ll do well throughout the Punk scene, but as for gaining many new fans. I don’t think this is the album that’ll do the job.

2.5/5

'Wouldworks by Rebuke is released on April 5th through Disconnect Disconnect Records.

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Chris Marshman