Up until quite recently, Ethan Stahl from Gutter Knife and Joe McMahon were both happily residing here in Brighton. Then the bright lights of London town came-a-calling and the lads have now both joined Chubby Charles, Meg Brooks and Razor in Chubby and the Gang.
The band have just announced that they have signed to the finger-on-the-pulse label Partisan Records, which is already home to Fontaines DC, Laura Marling, Fela Kuti, and IDLES.
In celebration, Chubby and the Gang have shared a new song titled ‘Union Dues‘, which was originally written/recorded alongside their acclaimed 2020 debut LP ‘Speed Kills’. In addition, the group has shared a new Looney Tunes-meets-West London video for ‘Speed Kills’ highlight ‘All Along the Uxbridge Road‘.
Fronted by local electrician Charlie Manning, Chubby and the Gang have been leading a pack of bands coming out of a new wave of British Hardcore. Underneath an unrelentingly fun concoction of hardcore, pub rock, doo wop, and blues, ‘Speed Kills’ boasts songs of deep substance and political conscience with a precise sense of time and place. Produced by Jonah Falco of F*cked Up, it has also proved to be one of this year’s surprise critical hits. It received an 8.0 Pitchfork review, Stereogum praised its “massive barroom gang choruses, power chords at breakneck tempos, rock spelled R-A-W-K and visceral gratification,” and Paste went as far as to call it the “the best punk-pop LP in recent memory”.
‘Speed Kills’ has now been digitally reissued and re-released via Partisan, and will be physically re-released on November 20th. The album was remastered for vinyl at West London’s Metropolis Studios. The standard edition will be available on yellow vinyl and include a cartoon sticker sheet. There will also be a limited-edition version that includes a black-and-white colour-in sleeve with crayons.
Chubby and the Gang will return with a new album in 2021 – more details on that coming shortly.
Find your Chubby and the Gang merch HERE or from your local record store.