Tijuana Bibles – Free Milk will be released on Friday 8th Dec

What a great review of Tijuana Bibles new album by Author Andy Bollen. We couldn’t have explained it better at BUR. Pre-order now in our shop page and be in with a chance to win a rare test pressing of the album.

Andy Bollen review
Tijuana Bibles – “Free Milk” 08/12/23
Button Up Records

Dislocated, fractured and angry yet modern Britain never sounded so good

In a parallel universe, if such things existed, the Tijuana Bibles would be on a major label, in New York or Berlin putting the finishing touches to their third album and preparing for a sold-out European tour. At one point, it genuinely felt the Coatbridge band were the next big thing. They certainly deserved to be. This is rock ‘n’ roll. Things seldom go to plan. Fate in the shape of a global pandemic intervened.

Released on Button Up Records, the independent label run by Proclaimers’ bass player Garry John Kane, may prove the right fit for the band at this point. Creative, inventive and hard-working, Kane may provide a stepping stone and stability while letting the majors know what they’re missing.

Ironically, the enforced delay may have helped the band. Free Milk’s timing could not come at a better time. It arrives in a disjointed nation, a backdrop of war, protest, strikes and political confusion. That sense of purpose, anger and energy permeates every word and note on the album.

The single release ‘The Wave’ was well received and reflective of the quality of an album full of radio-friendly hook and punch. The opening track, ‘Stateless’ is a call to arms, taking aim at the grotesque state of those running the country under Tory rule. ‘Slip into the Leather’, ‘Mothman’ and the title track are all hits. This is the type of album mainstream radio should be all over, and might still get.

Tijuana Bibles, with Tony Costello on vocals, his brother Danny on bass, James Brannigan on guitar and Mikey Dornan on drums are sonic conjurers. The title track burns with the same disdain as ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, it’s honed from the same seam as Johnny Rotten and PIL and there are shades of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, echoes of Killing Joke and perhaps even a Buckfast-infused Soundgarden. Anger is an energy.

The best music in the last forty years, Joy Division, Nirvana or Oasis, did not come from the metropolitan elite. It emerged from the wings, the periphery, the shadowy underbelly. “This album is a love letter to the power of community and a celebration of resistance,” says Costello. No one is going to argue with him especially when he and the band take to the stage and break into a song called ‘Pariah’ with that sneering edge of Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman.

The singer is blunt, almost drained, a mix of elation and relief. “To be totally honest, the release of this record will be a monumental moment for me and the rest of the boys” Costello continues, “It’s the culmination of so many life experiences and time spent honing our craft in the studio. We have put everything into it and we couldn’t be happier with it.”

The songs are volatile, snarling, subversive and provocative. It’s an album of controlled chaos, a sonic riot. As it should be, lyrically there’s cynicism and dismay and in times like these, we need albums like this.

Modern Britain, in the current political climate, stands at the abyss, and this album is the soundtrack to it. Free Milk resonates with searing guitars and post-punk angst, a primal commentary in a dystopian society. It is the perfect album for now. It has all the ingredients; disquiet, defiance and a haunting visceral energy. This is suburban desolation blues, an alternative to alt-rock. They are refusing to yield. They are not giving way.
Welcome to the sound of modern Britain. This is Tijuana Bibles.