The Steal

The Steal (2006)

givemeamuseumandillfillit

Disclaimer: If you're a stereotypical user of the forums here on the 'Org, you're going to eat this up with a spoon, so quit wasting time and just buy it right now. But for those who don't spend hours and hours on here worshipping anything related to Dr. Dan Yemin, I'm going to sum this one up for you.

So, 4 guys from different local bands in the U.K. join forces to make something drastically different from their earlier outputs, and it's "bloody fantastic!" What the Steal offer is 15 tracks of straight-up, energetic punk music, proudly wearing its influences on its sleeve, with only two of them reaching the two-minute mark. But what sets them apart from other bands doing the same thing is the fact that they've turned up the catchiness knob to 11, without turning down anything else to compensate. From the first opening fill on "Breakout" to the ridiculously happy 3/4 outro that finishes up this record in "Wonderstuff," The Steal is sure to be a hell of a home run with anyone who like their punk to be positive, energetic and extremly catchy without being cheesy.

With 15 tracks, the highlights are just too many to mention, but I'm going to go through some of them right now.

"The Steal" is seriously in the top 10 "songs written in the `00s;" just listen to the outro part -- if you're not rocking out while singing along by the end, you simply have no heart. *Little Dip" is 46 great seconds of ridiculously fast punk rock.

…You know what? I just went to listen to the record to refresh my memory, and now I'm back, 42 minutes later (that's 2 full listens, chaps). That's right, there's no point in listing the highlights because the record is just one giant highlight itself. Sadly, this band will never get the recognition it deserves, due to them being from the U.K. and the members of the band considering it as a "side project," but really, that's what makes it so good.

The Steal are just four guys having fun and playing music they grew up loving with true passion, how refreshing.