“Stand Strong Stand Proud” / “Tomorrow’s Soldier” +2 (Riot City Z30) April 1982
Vice Squad | Stand Strong Stand Proud | (Riot City) 1982 | Yeah! Whatta way to go! The first truly GREAT record Vice Squad have ever made explodes like a head in a scanning contest and towers above what’s in all honesty a pretty uninspiring mess of plastic.
Sharp and shining with more than a little solid pop sense, the thing rages like a leather clad King Kong over the cowering, crumbling Empire state competition. An impressive beast. If you’d always thought the Squad were just another splatter punk band then think again, ‘cos this is a four-track beauty with little regard for the wonderments of thrash.
“Stand Strong” is a beefy, brash and buxom punk pop gem with more hooks than an Asgardian butchery. And aren’t Beki’s vocals divine! The lass can really sing! Jeez, how more wonderful can a record get? ‘Stand Strong Proud’ is 70mm magnificence with all the trimmings. You’ll dream of it at night. (Sounds, 24/04/82)
Vice Squad | Stand Strong Stand Proud | (Riot City) 1982
Vice Squad: “Stand Strong Stand Proud” (Riot City) | Typical latterday punk, by and large, but not without its insights. Musically immature and derivative, Vice Squad occasionally transcend their lyrical banalities (“We’ll rise and they shall fall . . . One day we’ll show them all” — I ask you to make a worthy point.
‘Tomorrow’s Soldier’ seems teenage tribal aggression channelled into army trench-fodder, while the woefully titled “Rock ‘n’ Roll Massacre” has the suss to point out that punky hero Sid Vicious is as unworthy an idol as any of the overdosing seventies icons
The other two songs on the EP, disappointingly, are the same old self-righteous bleating, but some small spark of intelligence is indicated, overall. (Record Mirror, 24/04/82)
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