The Molotovs – Wasted On Youth – 30/01/26
Every kid wants to become a musician at some point. The lure of popularity is far too strong to ignore, the aesthetics of a guitar slung around your torso or a microphone gripped like a Millwall brick so ephemerally unreal that you can’t help but fixate on it. There are plenty of unlikely stories in the annals of popular music; hell, a school choir from Stockport managed to stop Lennon from topping the Christmas charts. Why couldn’t it be me? But reality always comes along, and for most people, it’s a dream that’s born in a cluttered garage and dies with a P60.
That’s why when you see The Molotovs, siblings Mathew and Issey Cartlidge, you can’t help but feel envious. Two teenagers who’ve put – and are still putting – in the hard graft, touring relentlessly and standing behind god knows how many merch tables. Matt is 17. At that age, I still had a curfew, let alone gigging with The Libertines, Blondie and Sex Pistols. Bastard.
As the title suggests, their debut LP, Wasted On Youth, is an intoxicating, riff-heavy reflection on their own experiences as young people growing up in the 21st Century. Grounded firmly in Mod style (if their outfits didn’t give that away), Wasted is a cocktail of influences – a bit of Weller here, a dash of Bragg there, a dollop of Doherty to float on top – all tied together with the catchiness of 2000s indie and, in some cases, the up-on-your-chairs, fists-on-your-Parkas brashness that served the Gallaghers so well. Simply, they are the next torchbearers of British guitar music, unafraid of wearing their heroes on their sleeves, putting the Mod into Modern Life Is Rubbish.
The album’s opener, ‘Get A Life’, takes a Libertines riff (‘Horror Show’) and aims it at the lifeless and boring, while ‘Daydreamer’ adds a bit of Britpop pomp to lighten its tale of hypocrisy. This pointed anger is apparent across the LP, informing songs like ‘More, More, More’, ‘Newsflash’ and ‘Rhythm Of Yourself’, always masked by a singalong wit and authenticity reminiscent of St Jude or, even better, The New Fellas.
That said, the album’s best tracks are the ones where Mathew’s wit trades the scathing for the saccharine. A real melodic nous comes through on my favourite track ‘Nothing Keeps Her Away’, while ‘Geraldine’ (though not quite as funny as Ian Dury’s escapade in a sandwich shop) is another emotive rocker that benefits from Issey’s backing vocals during the chorus, adding a poignancy to compliment the Wellerian lead.
The fact that a couple of youngsters have managed to put together such a cracking record should be lauded. That these two have many more years to come should excite you. They are the rising sun, hailing from a lineage of British icons: self-aware in their patriotism, uninhibited in their honesty, playful in their application. And it’s only the beginning.
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