REVIEW | KARL PHILLIPS & THE REJECTS DON’T HOLD BACK WITH NEW SINGLE ‘INGURLAND’

By Jasmine Hodge • On Reviews

Heav­ily-polit­ic­al and without the bit in your brain that fil­ters out what you should say and what you shouldn’t, Karl Phil­lips & The Rejects are back with new track Ingur­land and it’s a wake-up call for those who need to hear it. The band’s brand-new single takes the nation to task as it flails around wildly, wheth­er it be polit­ic­al incom­pet­ence, crack­pot con­spir­acy the­or­ists or hip­sters, everyone’s fair game as the Karl Phil­lips car­ni­val comes to town with its box­ing gloves on.

Round one.

Tak­ing it’s name from the drown­ing sound you hear foot­ball hoo­ligans scream­ing through­out foot­ball games, the track chal­lenges the nation’s inab­il­ity to agree on any­thing oth­er than the “bunch of bil­lion­aire bel­lends” “kick­ing a ball of air round a pitch in the name of Eng­land”. Based in Northamp­ton, the ska, rap and hip-hop legend is com­ment­ing on the cur­rent polit­ic­al and social night­mare over an infec­tious ska beat that you can’t help but dance too. Layered with horns, fest­iv­al rhythms and mes­sages worth listen­ing too, it is everything we would want at a shitty time like this. “White Lives Mat­ter! White Lives Mat­ter!” chants the tune before Phil­lips dis­rupts with his wise and sar­cast­ic, “well, yeah….but your life has always mattered…” before call­ing any­one who actu­ally believes that an “abso­lute fuck­ing melt”. The song has no abil­ity to hold back and has no prob­lem with call­ing out the egot­ist­ic­al mani­acs and racists.

“You’ve done noth­ing, you’ve saved no one and everything is exactly the same as it was before you star­ted…” states Phil­lips in regards to ‘twats’ rais­ing aware­ness for the bene­fit of their own ego without actu­ally con­trib­ut­ing any­thing productive.

Phil­lips states, “The track relates to our aware­ness that many people live in a neg­at­ive bubble and use adversity to fur­ther their own agenda. The chor­us line of ‘you say you love the poor but you really hate the wealthy’ per­son­i­fies this, where people say one thing but their agenda dic­tates they really mean some­thing else”. 

By end­ing with a full-on skank fest, the track not only has a per­fectly timed mes­sage but also is hit­ting the spot that unfor­tu­nately fest­ivals couldn’t hit this year.

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Jasmine Hodge

I’m Jas­mine, a freel­ance music journ­al­ist, music PR and por­trait artist who does­n’t hold back.

About Jasmine Hodge

I'm Jasmine, a freelance music journalist, music PR and portrait artist who doesn't hold back.