Wonk unit

Terror

Genre-hopping set from singular UK punks.

There’s no other band on the UK punk circuit quite like Wonk Unit. With a musical case of the jitters, they ping from straight-up punk to the cooler end of the Britpop spectrum, grunge to ska, and even shades of the Wonder Stuff on Flummoxed More Than Jealous.

But it’s through the lyrics that their simultaneously cynical and hopeful, positive and snarky personalities shine through. Clearly, these are men who have seen it all, and the deceptively jaunty, addict’s gallows humour of Christmas In A Crack House rings too true for total comfort. Meanwhile, the grungy Faith features the seen-it-all, simple but effective put-down of the year: ‘You’re wearing sunglasses indoors, you look like an idiot.’

All of which makes the romance of Safe Place come across as self-deprecatingly sincere rather than sugary, and gives you no reason to do anything other than believe every word.

Honest, funny, sad, grubby and entirely loveable, the world of Wonk is a lopsided delight.