Shuffle Aces: The Riots – Time For Truth

Discovering The Spitfires earlier this month led me down some interesting paths of musical discovery within the new mod scene. What I didn’t expect was to find a gem in Russia! Yep, The Riots Time For Truth is not what it sounds like – Woking, circa 1979 – but Moscow, circa 2013. I always get excited when I find something in a place where I wouldn’t expect to look!

Sasha Bolotov (vocals, guitar), Alex Shanin (vocals, drums), and Kirill Usachev (vocals, bass) were three mates from Perm in the Urals. With a shared love of almost everything British, they travelled over to find inspiration and when they returned, in 2009, they formed The White Trainers Community. They had some success but “logistical pressures” forced that band to fold… until they decided to reform as The Riots. In 2012 they released a couple of singles on a German label and did a short tour. Off the back of that they released their first album, Time For Truth in March this year. With strong word of mouth in the mod community they’ve developed a really strong underground following.

The song here, Time For Truth, is a cracker. Full of energy and passion, but really tight. These guys really get it.

Finding more of their stuff is still pretty difficult but between their Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TheRiotsBand), Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheRiotsBand) and Soundcloud pages (https://soundcloud.com/theriotsband) you’ll be able to keep an eye on what’s coming up.

Shuffle Aces is a series of posts that highlights a song of the week that “shuffling” has brought forth. With all the streaming services it’s not just an iPod on shuffle mode that we use to discover new stuff, but the principle remains the same: hit play and wait to see what gems come forth.