Chris Devotion & The Expectations go dutch with a review of their most excellent debut album, Amalgamation & Capital, popping up in Netherlands pop magazine Heaven.

Can’t understand dutch!?! …you fool. Here’s the review translated by the most lovely and multi-lingual, Laura Menenti, just for you, idiot!

Chris Devotion And The Expectations
Amalgamation And Capital
Armellodie Records

Irresistible.

Don’t ask me where I came across this name, because I honestly can’t remember – nor does it matter much, because the debut album of Chris Devotion And The Expectations, consisting of 16 songs, can be bought for seven pounds through their own website or Amazon UK. And there is all reason to do so: it’s been years since I last heard a punky pop album, or if you like, poppy punk album, that so irresistibly blasted from the speakers. Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Chris Devotion and his Expectations (CD/EX for short) couple the drive and class of the old Clash with the irresistible song structures of the Ramones, with a pinch of 70’s Elvis Costello on top – all this in a fashion that sounds related to the Gaslight Anthem, but with a more British rather than American twist. Of the sixteen songs, only two are longer than three minutes, while most are between 1.5 and 2 minutes. That there’s not a gram of fat to be found therefore goes without saying, even though it’s the qualities of Devotion as singer and songwriter, the Expectations as band (guitar, bass, drums), and Andy Miller as producer (also Sons & Daughters and The Delgados) which make Amalgation And Capital a triumph of 2012 punk rock which will be almost impossible to beat.

**** Eric van Domburg Scipio