679 Recordings | Upon listening to the new album The Great Escape from British rockers The Rifles, one of the first things that comes to mind is the seemingly endless plateau of old school influences stretching throughout their musical landscape. There’s everything from a touch of Morrissey in the vocals of Joel Stoker (particularly the infectiously catchy choruses of “Science in Violence”), to a quite a bit of Clash in the punk-twinged twang of both his and fellow axe-grinder Lucas Crowther’s guitars. It can be a bit difficult to summarize the sound of a band that’s straightforwardly rocksteady, sometimes shoegazy, and consistently cutting-edge in what’s proving to be their own little subgenre of modern rock. The Great Escape is out now on 679 Recordings, and serves as further evidence that they could be the British new wave’s Next Big Thing.
Words by Jeff Nau
Yeah you can def hear the clash’s influence in their material.