Violent Playground – Violent Years
Teenage tearaways Violent Playground exploded on to the Ipswich punk scene at the dog-end of the 1990s, terrorising audiences at Blank Generation punk nights. They released their first EP The Great Die Young on the iconic Backwater Records in 2001. It was a beautiful lo-fi shambles of a record, which betrayed musical ambitions way beyond their ability to play their instruments. We put out their second, self-titled EP in 2002, when antigen records was a tiny, insignificant hobby label, operating out of a bedroom on an Ipswich council estate. Just like it is today.
Violent Playground split in 2003, but were persuaded to re-form in 2018 for a one-off reunion show. They enjoyed themselves so much, they decided to re-record some old songs and play a few more shows.
Originally this was planned to be a compilation of their two EPs, jointly-released with Backwater Records. The band had other ideas and decided instead to record their reunion show set, live at Universal rehearsal studios with Gareth Patch (of These Are End Times).
Violent Years contains five songs from Universal session, two tracks from their self-titled EP and a psyche-punk blinder from the Backwater era, remixed by label tsar Steve Mann for the original planned compilation.
Massive thanks to Gareth and to Steve for his work on the remix project. Hopefully more tracks will emerge from this in due course.
“Think Magnapop with the post-punk angst of Wire and a splash of searching Siouxsie-esque melodrama” – Scanner Zine
