Klasse Kriminale - Rude Club
Randale Records
Klasse Kriminale, next year this Italian cult-band will be going strong for 30 years already! This anniversary won’t stop the criminal class of releasing a brand new record a year prior to their big 30th birthday entitled “Rude Club”, their first full-length for their new ‘home’ Randale Records.
I personally love the old Klasse Kriminale, records like “Ci Incontreremo Ancora Un Giorno!” and “Faccia A Faccia” are classics and will always remain all-time favorites to me, but I kind of lost track of this band after the “Electric Caravans” album released by Mad Butcher Records in 1998. With that record also being the last full-length I ever bought from them I haven’t had a proper update of Marco and co. for 16 years already! With not really knowing what to expect, I slid the CD into my stereo and cranked up the volume ready to be surprised.
The CD kicks off with the intro that is a ska tune. With the title of the album being “Rude Club” I wasn’t really surprised and besides the intro there are four more pure ska songs on this album. This doesn’t sound like much given the fact that the total amount of tracks is 15 on this record, but with a playing time of just over 42 minutes and the ska songs take up a total over 20 minutes it’s a pretty big cut in this record. But guess what? I don’t care, I don’t mind some ska every now and then, it’s summer, the sun is shining so it’s the perfect vibe for a hot summer ‘nite at Rude Club’. It also means there is room for 10 classic Klasse Kriminale songs.
Because these guys might be getting older, they still know how to produce good, solid streetpunk and Oi! songs after all these years and this is what might have surprised me a bit. Because me losing track of Klasse Kriminale after “Electric Caravans” wasn’t exactly because these guys were hiding under a rock all these years, that record just didn’t do it for me and I lost interest in the band. But listening to songs like “Ultima Chiamata”, “Diritto Al Lavoro”, “Camallo”, “Stesso Sangue” (featuring Lars Frederiksen) and “1983” in combination with a good balance of sunny ska and rocksteady tracks made me get into these legends all over again.
Besides the music, the album also has an excellent packaging. I received the CD version of “Rude Club” and these new digipak’s Randale Records are using almost made me forgot I love vinyl more than CD’s. Inside the digipak you will also find a huge fold out poster with a band image on one side and all lyrics in both Italian and English on the other side. I know where I’ll be dancing and singing along all summer, at the “Rude Club”! What about you?
