Money Is King finds The Slackers delivering politically powerful ska rooted in moral clarity. Across five tracks, the band return to the lineage of songs like Ghost Town by The Specials, taking aim squarely at wealth impunity and the way truth simply dissolves once enough money is involved.

The title track sets the tone with an ominous rocksteady pulse, and a sense of weary observation. The Whole World Was In On It raises the tempo slightly, and the band sound utterly at ease, having spent decades refining their sound. There’s no urgency to prove anything, and the songwriting feels effortless and casual. The production holds a beautiful tension between old and new, with vintage equipment that sounds worn paired with crisp, high-definition recording. The result is incredibly soothing, even when the subject matter is bleak. Glenn Pine takes the lead vocal on Hold On, delivering a high-pitched rocksteady performance that feels directly descended from classic Jamaican roots music, with loads of space and a gentle softness that contrasts with the earlier harsh observations. Try To Break Me Down adds touches of ragtime piano in another example of the band’s deep understanding of rhythm and blues history, and the EP closes with No One Likes The Truth as a perfect curtain call, as Vic Ruggiero sings about being raised to value honesty, only to discover that honesty rarely rewards you, closing the EP with a kind of resigned shrug that suits the band perfectly. Honesty won’t save the world, but it at least lets you wake up the next day and carry on, and The Slackers continue to tell uncomfortable truths and make political music because it’s simply who they are. Money Is King is a brilliant EP from a brilliant band that proves that telling the truth may not win you much, but it’s still worth doing.