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The Severed Limb are a young six-piece skiffle band from London who write songs influenced by a variety of roots styles. The band released their debut EP in Oct 2010 to much acclaim and released an album for Damaged Goods in 2014.It led to a filmed BBC Session with Steve Lamacq who said of them "Rampant and joyful ... an infectious mix of old rock & roll styles playfully twisted for (today)".

From busking with washboards to recording raucous rock in pub basements, Severed Limb are the epitome of DIY. Born and bred in Brixton, the Londoners’ new album is the point at which punk and skiffle meet with one clear aim; to take their sound from the streets and make people dance to a pub-punk rock that’s defiantly outspoken.

Buskers by day, noise-makers by night, ‘Severed Limb Strikes Again' sums up the band’s tormented, vastly defiant look at the world and all its ills; from drink and drugs, even to love. Ever since Bobby, and fellow rebels-with-a-cause Charlie, his half-brother Leo, Sam, Alex and Simon, came together to record their first tracks on cassette in the basement of a pub where Charlie was landlord after bonding over their favourite jukebox sounds, they’ve been on a mission to make a noise – sonically and politically – and to get the world bopping in the process.

Written, right there, on the concrete of London’s Borough Market during one of the bands regular busking sessions, the album’s spontaneity, from the immediate Undertones stomp of opener ‘Oh My My!’, will make anyone take notice – including singer Imelda May who invited the band to open her show at The Royal Albert Hall. “It’s the first track we recorded and we only did one take. We wanted it to sound like a slap in the face. It's about staying engaged with life and not giving in. It's also about South London - the vilification of poor young people and the rampant gentrification. I'm a socialist so I feel I can stick my oar in,” tells Bobby.

Swelling with their own authentic take on the sounds they love, each track is infused with sounds from the 50s to the 70s; from the Tom Waits style percussion of ‘Poison’ to ‘Freezing Point’ which revives Berlin-era Iggy & The Stooges as it reveals details of a recent visit to China. “I played in a heavy metal bar that was owned by a policeman - something that was completely illegal for him to do! I also visited a school where children sang the communist anthem 'March of the Volunteers' every morning,” tells Bobby.

Laid down on two-inch tape in an all-analogue New Forest studio, the band were given chance to express their appreciation for a vintage sound in their own frank way – even if things did take a mysterious turn. “We'd drive down to Dorset and it was great to be totally isolated,” they say. “The studio was a wooden hut near a village called Burley which is famous for witchcraft. It was an apt place to record the b-movie horror film-inspired tracks like ‘Bela Lugosi’. Hopping from punchy skiffle to the murkier depths of visceral punk rock, Severed Limb imperfectly embody the uncompromised spirit of true rock’n’roll.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ooh My My!
2. Poison
3. Bela Lugosi
4. Salamander
5. Feed Me Seymour
6. Freezing Point
7. Severed Limb Strikes Again
8. It's Not Fine