Let's get physical
Personal Punk review Character Actors 'A History of Crashes' CD
Four labels from the UK, US and Germany have come together to release this ten-track primer for Leeds’ CHARACTER ACTORS in anticipation of a new album next year. Featuring all four tracks from 2024s Everywhere Is Good Except Where We Are EP, five from 2023s The Hardest Part album and a solitary song from 2019s full-length Academy Training Wasted, bloated this ain’t.
Of these ten songs, I’ve reviewed all but one before. That one would be The Moon And My Friends, from the band’s debut (2019s aforementioned Academy Training Wasted), an album I haven’t listened to. The three-year gap between that and their next recording is evident in this track’s brash, youthful appeal compared to the more considered approach to come. Brimming with gritty anthemics, The Moon And My Friends is highly reminiscent of Liverpool’s DOWN AND OUTS‘ earlier abrasive outpourings. The four tracks from 2024s Everywhere Is Good Except Where We Are EP (reviewed here) deserve their place on this (sort-of) best of; from the killer hook and bounce of Hallelujah II, the crucial chorus of chunky punker Most Kinds Of Dirt, to the heartfelt, emo-punk of With Friends Like These, Who Needs Pricks? and the banjo/three-part-harmony cow-punk of Teach Me The Ways Of The Secular Flesh, these tracks raise expectations for the new stuff they’re currently cooking up. Of the five songs from 2023s The Hardest Part album (reviewed here), they’ve definitely picked the hits. I said Where’s God etc.: is “a ragged, sticky-floored gig anthem in two minutes” and it still stands. The understated Que Sera, Quesadilla has a delicious key change that reminded me of JETS TO BRAZIL, Growing Up To Do is a masterclass in restraint, ditto the FRANK TURNER-ish charms of Reverie, leaving the SOCIAL DISTORTION-as-polite-English-chaps fizz of Hungover/Heartbroken, crashing chorus and all, to complete the picture.
The sound of a band growing up in public, CHARACTER ACTORS nevertheless show a knack for hooks and an instinct for the delicate balance of restraint vs. letting go. A History Of Crashes is a thrilling listen in its own right and, if I’m not mistaken, the first time these songs have appeared on a physical release. CD costs around seven quid too, so not half bad.
Out now. Released on September 18th 2026 by Some Dude Records (UK), Engineer Records (UK), Punk Rock Radar (US) and Scene Police (Germany).
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