Getdown Services' 'Massive Champion' Is Deadpan, Danceable, and Completely Its Own Thing
Bristol duo Josh Law and Ben Sadler return with Massive Champion, the follow-up to 2022’s Crisps, and it finds Getdown Services digging deeper into the wit-wrapped disco-punk that’s made them one of the more distinctive names in the UK’s ongoing sprechgesang wave alongside Yard Act and Dry Cleaning. Thirteen tracks mine the strange poetry of British childhood and everyday absurdity, and the duo covers a remarkable amount of sonic ground while doing it.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: funkier basslines drive standouts like “I Can’t Die Like That,” “The Definitive Map,” and “Lentils,” giving the record’s talkier passages a genuine groove to lock into. The Spatial Dynamics: the record swings hard between registers — “Probiotic” leans into crunching guitars and heavier punk percussion, while “Poor Bannister” and “What’s On Your Mind?” pull back into slower, more melodic territory, and the whiplash between the two never feels like a gimmick.
Standout Performance
The interplay between Law and Sadler’s talk-sung delivery and the rhythm section is the record’s real engine — deadpan and precise, it’s the connective tissue that makes thirteen genre-hopping tracks feel like one coherent statement.
Track Highlights
⚡ “I Can’t Die Like That” is the clearest showcase of the record’s funkier, more danceable instincts.
🌈 “Probiotic” swings hard the other way — crunching guitars and prominent percussion that prove the duo can do straightforward punk aggression just as well as they do wit.
Massive Champion doesn’t reinvent sprechgesang so much as prove there’s still plenty of room to be weird inside it. Certified.