Given that punk was the last great musical movement for the “kids”, and 1977 was a very long time ago, it is remarkable how many of the peripheral practitioners have survived into the glory of middle age. Not many will have heard of Reaction now or, indeed, back in the day but being from Airdrie has always had its disadvantages when it comes to publicity especially if you had made the court pages in the local newspaper.
And so it has come to pass that, in the here and now of 2016, Airdrie’s former bad boy punks have an album out called “Accelerator” and it would seem that the passing of the years has tamed neither their enthusiasm for music nor their sentimentality for the bad behaviour of youth with both “Faster” and “Weekender Offender” kicking the door down in a blue collar, amphetamine fuelled frenzy.
"Accelerator" just isn’t the kind of album that stops for a waltz and the majority of the rest of the songs contained therein maintain the kind of manic pace that does credit to their energy and, in the few instances where the band pause for breath, it would appear that it is actually the ghost of The Clash rather than those unattained glories that haunts them. That, however, doesn’t quite explain their desire to cover “Can’t Help (Falling In Love)” but, that said, being from Lanarkshire always did require having a sense of humour.
I’ll say this about Reaction – they have put their heart into this album and that is a far from common occurrence these days.