Ming City Rockers: Ming City Rockers

Punk is alive and Minging.

By Kris Needs
( Classic Rock )
published

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

‘Ming’ is the local nickname for Immingham, a petrochemical dock town near Hull that happens to have spawned one of 2014’s most exciting new bands and debut albums.

Aged 18 to 22 and fuelled by small-town frustration (plus abundant booze), Ming City Rockers spew incensed blues-punk onslaughts fired with MC5-level energy and monolithic Stooges brutality, Clancey Jones’ scabrous shriek conjuring Noddy Holder fronting the Ramones on crystal meth.

Like its best young upstarts, MCR reach before punk to rock’s original primal energy. Packing 11 tracks into 30 minutes, previous singles Chic And The Motherfuckers, I Wanna Get Out Of Here But I Can’t Take You Anywhere and Twist It are joined by magnificently unfettered rampages such as ultra-nihilistic I Don’t Like You, self-explanatory Get Out Of Your Head and the mercilessly feral She’s A Wrong ‘Un, plus their steaming cover of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads. A magnificent racket.

Kris Needs
Kris Needs

Kris Needs is a British journalist and author, known for writings on music from the 1970s onwards. Previously secretary of the Mott The Hoople fan club, he became editor of ZigZag in 1977 and has written biographies of stars including Primal Scream, Joe Strummer and Keith Richards. He's also written for MOJO, Record Collector, Classic Rock, Prog, Electronic Sound, Vive Le Rock and Shindig!