“Whoever is writing the story of Getdown Services is pure making it up now.” That’s the duo’s own assessment of the last two and a half years, according to their press notes, and it’s hard to argue: a cult debut, relentless touring across four continents, and a slot at Harry Styles’s own Meltdown Festival, all building to a second album that’s meant to prove they’re not just a joke band with good timing.
Josh Law and Ben Sadler are from Minehead, based in Bristol, and Massive Champion is entirely self-written, self-produced and self-recorded, the same in-house method that gave their 2023 debut Crisps its scrappy honesty. Thirteen tracks, out via Breakfast Records, and considerably more ambitious than anything they’ve released before.
Opener ‘Poor Bannister’ sets the tone by pairing an unexpected country twang with a song about, genuinely, a stranger being sick on the bus. It shouldn’t be moving, and somehow it mostly is. ‘Probiotic’ swings the other way entirely, gnarly rock and roll swagger built around gut health trends, the kind of joke that works because the band clearly cares about the riff underneath it as much as the punchline. ‘The Radiator’ leans into a Rapture-style dance-punk groove, tighter and more controlled than anything on Crisps, proof the duo can do focus as well as chaos.
Not every song needs the joke to land, and ‘What’s On Your Mind’ proves it, a slower, more melodic detour that trades the band’s usual sense of humour for something plainer and less immediate, the one moment on the record that feels like a pause rather than a punchline.
That restraint pays off elsewhere. ‘Stop Living’ finds a genuine funk groove without losing the band’s chaos, and the closing run pulls the record’s British-childhood nostalgia into focus rather than undercutting it with another bit.
Two and a half years of touring could easily have turned Getdown Services into a covers band of themselves, chasing whatever line got the loudest reaction live. Massive Champion mostly resists that. It’s still ridiculous. It’s just ridiculous with slightly better aim.
