The Ejected A Touch of Class LP reissue
Blimey, a reissue of the EJECTED’s first album, A Touch of Class. I know the name of the record was supposed to be ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but even that intent does not make up for the pictures of the lads with their girlfriends that already looked awkward in 1982. A rather tasteless choice for a cover, akin to your average chauvinistic heavy metal band. When I was a teen, I played this LP to death (I owned the 1996 reissue for some reason) because its simplicity, sing-along choruses, and energy really appealed to me, and as a consequence, I know the thing by heart. I cannot say that it aged well, though. Overall, it is pretty sloppy, if not generic. It does get the feet tapping, but it could be out of nostalgia and my natural disposition to love naive ’80s British punk, as there were objectively much better bands at that time. The lyrics are what you would expect from an Oi!-inclined UK82 band, about being working class, being fifteen, fighting, England not being dead, and not having 10p. Despite all this, I still get goosebumps when I listen to the shower-tested “Carnival,” a quintessential teenage punk song with an unlikely, out-of-tune reggae moment right in the middle and a chorus that just goes “Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.” There are two ways to look at A Touch of Class and at the EJECTED. If you think that Riot City Records was the most meaningful ’80s punk label and that getting hammered in front of a brick walls is a way of life, then you can probably already sing along to all the EJECTED’s lyrics, and if you buy this record, it is just because you could not afford the original version. If you are just looking for some solid, tuneful, old-school British punk music but are not a fanatic of the genre, then you can definitely find better bands to listen to.