This is a review of "The Wellington Street EP" recorded by King Palooka. The review was written by Tony Pasquariello in 2001.

I had heard quite a lot about King Palooka from the infamous Leeds Music Scene message board, in terms of musical style. So when the CD arrived I thought it right to review I with an open mind. What I heard was a badly mixed CD throughout - all I could really tell was that the drums were mixed too highly and the guitars couldn't be picked out as clearly as one would imagine. They seem to have a mixture of "Punk" guitars and strong vocals.

Their first song "Wrong Fuel In The Engine" just seemed to go on a little too long and didn't really go anywhere, with the whole song based around two chords. It had no defining structure to it, in which you could sing along to. Started off with a quite heavy drumbeat and then descended into a great wall of noise. Quite a disappointing start!

The 2nd song "Don't (You) Fall In Love With Me" seemed to have quite a lot more energy to it compared to the 1st track, both melodically and musically. This has quite a catchy chorus to it and I would have opened the CD with this. This starts off with the band going full force and has some very nice guitar lines in it, and glides very nicely throughout the track. But the mix of the recording lets them down once again as things can't be heard clearly. A very good track.

Their final song, "Dog Dog", was one of the best songs I have heard in a long time. It has a very punk edge to it, both in its vocals and guitars. This also has some very interesting guitar parts in. This reminded me of some of the early Green Day material and is definitely one of the standout tracks of this demo.

Overall, King Palooka has talent, but this CD does not show that talent off to the standard it should do, as it is mixed VERY poorly. But a very good CD, nonetheless.