Review: Lenders – Da Che Parte Stai?

“We are the Lenders from Rome and this is pure hate and oi! music!”

It’s always a pleasure to talk about Lenders, a band we met at Reggio Emilia Porco Rosso Fest and that we reviewed already about their split with Iron Hill. The Lenders, named after the legendary Mark Lenders, football player famous for his tiger shoot in the Holly and Benji cartoon saga, come back with their last album, “Da Che Parte Stai?”, out on Hellnation. The title alone, which can be roughly translated with “On which side of the fence are you?“, gives an idea of what these guys are about. It’s a thirteen tracks album and the running time is approximately forty-five minutes, including a ghost track. Musically speaking it is all about street punk Oi! with a dash of old school. Thanks to the two guitars there’s room both for powerful and more melodic riffing, making the sound smooth and dynamic. The bass guitar and the drums provide an excellent rhythm section and Mirco’s scratchy and sharp vocals are just perfect, in addition of being unique in it’s own way. The lyrics are quite intense and treat topics such as every day life, social issues and street culture. I guess you already got me, this album is absolutely exciting and I find it quite hard to choose my favorite song. Every song bears a trademark, in a sense in which the band made it to catch the right direction making their sound personal and unmistakable. Congrats to Lenders, huge discovery for the 2019 – which keeps providing us so many emotions -: give this album a try, buy it if you can – we have it in our distro – and support the band. It’s Lenders, pure hate and Oi! music!

Translation by Pepe TMD