What’s the Matter Boy?

By the time of Subway Sect’s first album, Vic Godard had recognised punk’s creative dead end, though even the Subway Sect’s contributions to that movement (the singles “Ambition” and Nobody’s Scared”) had scope and ambition lacking from most of their punk peers. What’s the Matter Boy? is Godard realigning his superior songwriting within more welcoming, creatively open fields – there’s a touch of rockabilly, a thread of folksiness, some hints at skiffle, swing, R&B, as though Godard’s gesturing back to basics, and the lyrics suggest a beat poet’s sensibility. Godard’s voice is in fine mettle, too – his capacity to extract emotional tang from a seemingly limited tool shows that he knows how to use it to his benefit, and to write songs that suit.