Album Review: Dictator Ship – Your Favourites

From The Hives to The Hellacopters and The Nomads, Scandinavia has a proud tradition of resurrecting punk’s roots, you can now add the Uppsala based outfit Dictator Ship to that list with the release of their debut album. This is an album that contains the essence of The Saints, The MC5, The Stooges, Eddie And The Hot Rods and The Sonics, one that has been modestly and appropriately titled “Your Favourites“.

The opening track ‘In The Heat Of The Night‘ is pure motor city garage rock ‘n roll, with a sound that has been matched perfectly with primitive production, something that gives the material a raw wall of sound quality. ‘Your Favorites’ is an album that is stuck firmly in the first half of the seventies, all those band’s that paved the way for the punk scene in the latter half of the decade are clearly a huge influence on Dictator Ship, add to this there’s a touch of rock ‘n roll excess, but, and it’s an important but, not enough to push them into being a bloated rock dinosaur, all the while the energy levels stay in the red and Dictator Ship just hit you with riff after riff.

Dictator Ship are resurrecting the hedonistic joy of the less overblown side of rock ‘n roll and the roots of punk, you could easily argue that Dictator Ship are stuck in the past, but it’s not necessarily a bad place to be. Each track on ‘Your Favourites‘ carries the echoes of the artists that influenced this slab of wax, although it must be said that by the end of “Your Favorites” you are likely to have experienced a serious case of Deja Vu. If you want an authentic throwback then “Your Favourites” will be released on the 3rd April 2020 and can be pre-ordered on CD, black vinyl and digital formats via The Sign Records here

Dictator Ship can be be found on Facebook here