Review of The GOPNIKS debut album 'The Blah Biz Cabaret'
- Elizabeth Guest
- Apr 17
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 23
Eerie, eclectic and ever entertaining, The GOPNIKS welcome you to their world and debut album The Blah Biz Cabaret
Bearing a subculture of Russian juvenile delinquents as their namesakes, Galway’s The GOPNIKS possess a comparable rebellious and lawless spirit. Bursting out of whatever category they have previously been confined to, the band binds punk’s snarl with goth-rock’s thunder, whilst also incorporating an additional helping of blues, for good measure.
The GOPNIKS make it abundantly apparent that listeners shan’t be coddled as they enter the wonderfully weird world of The Blah Biz Cabaret, nor will the band hold their hand through twisting sonic avenues.
With vocalist Ben Cash, keyboardist Patryk Bak, guitarist Lucas Biggs Packard, bassist Andy Toma and drummer Adam Martyn making up the rowdy bunch, The GOPNIKS have electrified Ireland’s live circuit since their 2022 conception. Yet as of April 18th, the band bear a more riotous armoury, thanks to the release of their debut album, The Blah Biz Cabaret.
From the album’s opener, Person Preface Exorcised, The GOPNIKS make it abundantly apparent that listeners shan’t be coddled as they enter the wonderfully weird world of The Blah Biz Cabaret, nor will the band hold their hand through twisting sonic avenues. Laser synths prompt this initiation, throwing the red velvet curtains open to reveal a dense punk arrangement. Cash’s vocals possess a theatrical Richard Hell-like quality, before shapeshifting into a sniping, Johnny Rotten sneer. Person Preface Exorcised sets the tone for the evening’s performance - bold, entertaining and ever volatile.
As the album progresses, so does its dramatics. Released as their second ever single, Sees Banshees in the Trees is a brooding, chugging number that reaches a gothic head, before Ben Cash and the Whitecats injects a quickfire dose of goth-laced blues. The show is three songs in and it’s already electric- listeners, keep up!
In the creeping Rick’s Rickets, Cash declares that he is in want of “a 1920s cabaret”. Whilst there are no flapper dresses in sight, The GOPNIKS do offer a riotous, villainous showdown, almost extending the night’s cabaret invitation to danger itself. Such menacing tones are extended throughout the album’s first side, with Binned People Off welcoming the audience to the most sinister place of all, “to hell”.
The GOPNIKS demonstrate a creative knack for thrilling as quickly as they spook, for shocking before promptly reeling their audiences back into their theatrical fold.
At the turn of the side and with instrumentation reminiscent of Iggy Pop’s The Idiot, Man O’Ent picks up promptly where the show left off, with the intermission clearly serving to reinvigorate the band.
Perhaps the album’s zenith can be found within the Blah Biz Programme a track that ebbs and flows between a Weimar-esque melodrama and contemporary cultural commentary; or maybe, in the album’s closer, He Drives. Revelling in a combination of fizzing keyboard-led attacks, rich, Libertines-like guitar chords and idiosyncratic lyrics, He Drives is damning evidence as to why The GOPNIKS cannot be confined to a single genre. The Blah Biz Cabaret
defies both the binary and the boring, opting instead for a genre opulence.
Built upon foundations of eeriness, extensiveness and the eclectic, their debut album is a bold declaration from the Galway five-piece. The GOPNIKS demonstrate a creative knack for thrilling as quickly as they spook, for shocking before promptly reeling their audiences back into their theatrical fold.
The Blah Biz Cabaret opens from April 18th, and what a show awaits.
The GOPNIKS vinyl LP is available here:
We have a few copies of their 7" single left:
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