Review: Bishops Green – “Black Skies”

Pirates Press Records – 20 May 2022

Bishops Green return to the vanguard of modern street punk with their new EP.

For the last decade or so, Vancouver’s Bishops Green have been one of the standard bearers of modern street punk. The band started with a bang and a flurry of releases between 2013 and 2016. Since then they’ve stayed busy as a live act, but haven’t dropped much new music. With Black Skies, the band returns to the forefront. It’s good to have them back.

Bishops Green are most obviously influenced by bands like Cockney Rejects, Cock Sparrer, Sham 69 and The Business. They pull off the style in a way that musically feels true to those street punk pioneers. Unlike a lot of their contemporaries, they manage to do it without any hint of heavy metal in their guitar sound. Black Skies feels like it could be a lost relic from 1981.

The guitars have a less aggressive, more reverb heavy sound that appears to take its cue from new wave. The vocals are angry street punk, but the guitars have a bit of Big Country or The Plimsouls. The songs are also a little longer, which really allows them to develop. The huge sing along choruses are still there, but the tension builds to a boiling point leading up to them. There’s certainly more nuance than most of the band’s earlier work.

Not surprisingly, most of the songs have a political bent. Opener “Last Minute Warning” is almost certainly about the government’s responsibility for the Covid-19 death toll. “Your Paradox” addresses good old fashioned class warfare. “What For”, “No Tomorrow” and “Empty Streets” are a bit more ambiguous lyrically, but are still vaguely apocalyptic. The record’s title comes from a line from “Ravens Cry”, which must be at least a subtle nod to Edgar Allan Poe. (More on this in a minute.) Closer “Another Mourning” laments the loss of a friend.

Officially Black Skies is an EP, but its seven songs clock in at nearly half an hour. (It’s definitely longer than at least a couple of LPs I’ve reviewed this year, and justifies its 12-inch format.) These songs will quickly grow on you, and ultimately it’s a satisfying listen. Rumor has it that there’s more on the horizon, and that this is going to be a big year for Bishops Green. Like I said earlier, it’s good to have them back.

For vinyl fiends: Black Skies features some really cool black and white artwork that must have been inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. It looks like it could be the cover of one of his anthologies. It’s available on highly appropriate milky clear and black ice 12-inch 45 RPM vinyl.