Review: Laughing In The Face Of – The Governor [EP]

Puns can be challenging. Used to work with a guy who made it his mission in life to purvey and promote the art of punnism in every possible context. Emails, meetings, server names. It never ended. Used to have to fight the daily urge to drag him by the hair into the gents and drown him. This lot also like a bit of that sort of thing. All four track titles are plays on words, with some kind of cryptic fish and chip shop conceit going on.

However.

This metallic, thrashy little Birmingham outfit, also known as Laughing In The Face Of, have also hidden four tight as a gnat’s proverbial, pacey, old school HC-spirited tracks under a smokescreen of these knowingly dumb song titles. In all, this is a bit of a DIY belter. I can completely forgive song titles like “Cod Stewart” and “There’s Something Fishy About this Plaice” when a band nails out simple-as-fook bounce-along classic ‘core fare like this. Think Jailcell Recipes – only a lot younger and prettier – nudging into Gorilla Biscuits territory. With the odd gang chorus and guitar squeal, crisp lyrical content and clean delivery, this is nine minutes of shot in the arm positivism that gets in, does its business with a minimum of fuss and just says bye bye. And leaves. Job being done.

Nice.

4 out of 5 high fives!

Review: Fighting Fiction/Sweet Empire [7″]

First, an apology. I had planned to finalise this write up before these good people formally launched this vinyl offering of neo-politico punk in early September. But things got delayed. That’s the gonzo world of hobby writing for you. Family; work; then this stuff. Sorry.

And sorry, because this is really rather good. And well deserves the shout. Don’t expect hardcore – it’s melodic-p verging onto almost Billy Bragg territory of yore at turns – but this is still pokey enough fare with soul, brain – and heart.

Fighting Fiction – hailing from that Brighton… not that we should hold that against them… have been doing this for a while now. Album under their belt and a decent following driven by a touring ethic. I’ve written elsewhere that the predictions in some quarters of a upwelling of intelligent political music – of a hue unseen since the 80s – as a reaction to the current administration have proven distinctly hollow. Is the best we can do the King Blues..? Jesus… Nonetheless, some acts come up near the plate, Enter Shikari (maybe) – and these chaps. And that’s about it, unfortunately.

This split seven incher with the Netherlands’ Sweet Empire features four tracks that don’t hang around. You get a minimalist take on mass acceptance of exploitation (‘The Long and Short of It’) and a harder-egded vitriolic gobbet ripping brightly into the artistic and spiritual desolation of the talent show culture (‘Tonight Matthew..’) on the Fighting Fiction side – and classic-sounding melodic garage punk railing against Business Bastards on the Sweet Empire side. Sweet Empire’s contribution has a freshness and vigour to it that is infectious – no song longer than 2 mins 15 secs – and that is medically impossible to dislike. Blink and you miss it.

Do the kids even care about anything other than social media and getting the right quiff to go with their deck shoes these days? Does anyone care? Don’t know. But if you like your punk with a bit of a conscience and substance – alongside the same basic formula of hooks and riffs that have been going around for nearly thirty years now – then these bright, handsome young things are for you. Keep it up, gents. Do us proud.

4 out of 5 high fives!

Live: Baby Godzilla/The Callout/Forever Grace, The Firefly Worcester, 5/9/13

Well then. Three bands. Quid a band. One of these bands currently ripping it right up in the music press as I type this. A school night fest of crunk, melodic punk and shittery above a pub in the Midlands. Let us begin.

Youth. It’s a wonderful thing to behold. The wilful disregard of risk and convention. The unassailable confidence. The unfettered exhuberance. With an apparent average age of about fourteen Worcester’s very own Forever Grace have youth spraying wildly out of every orifice. They also sound a lot like Slayer circa Reign in Blood. However, they both clearly know this – and do not give a single wet little shit. Cranking out a brand of filthy metallic hardcore that is getting rather big right now, this was an impressively lean and pokey mix of post-Frank Carter Gallows, Pariso and some of that Scandinavian stuff that does the rounds. All this delivered by five edgier versions of the geek who won X Factor last year. Tattoos, skinny jeans, quiffs – these boys looked the part. And given the spark in the eye and the spring in their step as they nailed through their set, they certainly don’t lack for self-belief or ambition. Congested market right now lads – but power to your elbow.

This band also brought their crew. At times reminiscent of some kind of demented 70s disco dance off gone wrong – or a pack of drunken tramps rabidly fighting with the invisible man – their fanboys took it in turns to enthusiastically flail and romp around in the general area between the drum kit and the audience with real vim and vigour. The band joined in too. This was spectator moshing at its best. Ultimately this is what this kind of music is all about, the kids having their moment and getting stuff out of their system – and almost bought a tear to the eye. You windmill on boys. Just mind you don’t smack the civilians.

Band two. The Callout. Melodic punk edging right into emo – soaring harmonic vocals, emotional content and some sweet hooks. I understand that this three-piece have paid their dues, playing as a unit for some years – and it shows. With heavy shades of Hot Water Music and The Gaslight Anthem, the sound was crisp and style distinctly American. There was even a note perfect cover of what I think was a 5ive song – in the vein of the kitsch cover of Rush Hour by Joyrider all those years ago – which they basically pulled off.  A lot of this was engaging stuff – but did drift a little now and again. As it happened this was probably a good thing for all involved – a lull before the storm – given what followed.

Band three. Baby Godzilla. On the back of airplay on the niche shows on national radio, and playing their first date on a national tour schedule that will see them supporting Black Spiders and Hawk Eyes, this was expected to be good. What it was – and I use this after very careful consideration – was utter and complete fucking chaos.

Musically, Baby Godzilla are a kind of quirky cross between the Dillinger Escape Plan and the Computers. Three hundred mile an hour skinny-jeaned rock and roll punk interspersed with freaky time signature noodlery – and a whole lotta screaming. Not that this particularly comes across live – there was the occasional recognisable tune and there was a part where they all put their instruments down and walked around rhythmically shouting. But catchy harmonies aren’t really what this band are about.  This was about sonic assault. It wasn’t about the crowd moshing either. Further windmilling by Forever Grace’s mutant urban dance crew was rapidly shut down as these sweaty lunatics from Nottingham basically turned the tables and invaded the crowd.

Two songs in and there were beardy boys in vests causing mayhem at the back of the room: rearranging and clambering all over the furniture, getting nose to nose with the punters – and generally freaking out like chimpanzees having a breakdown. All to the backdrop of an ungodly, feral noise. There were cables tangled in the light fittings. There was a point when one of them almost fell out the window. There was someone flat out on the bar wailing like a banshee. The Callout guys – perhaps wisely – hid out on the balcony. Guitars were handed to random people to fiddle with or played with the teeth or dry humped against the wall (you got the full Hendrix, people). If as is likely they get signed to a major label – they’ve just released a single on Venn Records, the rebooted Gallows’ current vehicle – then that major label better be prepared to pay for new guitars every show. You get the distinct impression that the only thing stopping this lot torching or smashing theirs into the amps was the cost.

And so. Their main set ended with someone rolling around the middle of the floor in a puddle of sweat, sobbing; the encore ended with the bassist wildly smacking the drums like my two year old daughter, having first dragged the kit right in amongst the audience – with the lad with the microphone screaming himself hoarse about whores.

You saw it here first.

Fucking mental.

Live: Empire/Planecrasher/Layers – The Firefly, Worcester, 1/8/13

So. A baking hot school night in a provincial city in middle England. Three stories up above a side street and behind a sprawling new Asda… we have some bands. Three sweaty examples of the best the Midlands scene has to offer. And at £3 in – that’s a whole quid a band -seriously, what’s not to love?

First up – Empire. Billed as Faith No More does hardcore, these boys were bright as you like. A simple but highly effective riff-heavy sound of drums, bass and lead providing a rock solid platform for the hugely, hugely impressive vocal range of their charismatic and snake-hipped front man. And yep, this boy has a genuine touch of a young Mike Patton in manner and delivery. These guys are maybe what you might call post-emo: crystal clear vocals, but with a scuzzier feel to their melodic sound than the Alkaline Trio-s of this world. For sake of comparison, there isn’t quite the nails-hard edge here that you find, say, in Mr P’s works peri or post Faith No More – and no down low screaming from the legendary crouch… But then, who wants to rehash the trademark stage antics of a man who when given his own free artistic rein does songs about sex with food (Mr Bungle – google it, people). In all, Empire work up a really interesting sound, with stacks of potential – and the vocalist in particular deserves more superlatives than I can give him here. A couple of their tracks had a groove that kind of got right down into your pelvis, and I believe you can find the video to one of these – ‘Blackheart’ – on that facetube right now. Go see it and give these good people your support.

Now. Planecrasher. Sounding initially like a wall of ultra-heavy stoner, but with way more spark and crank than than this moniker implies – this was utterly engaging and unashamed carnage. Loud as sweet merry fuck, with said wall of noise decorated with twiddly guitar detailing straight out of Gregg Ginn’s SCT playbook and pure filth basslines straight out of Trouser Minnow-era Rapeman – Hereford’s Planecrasher are aptly named. This was weapons-grade chugging that could take out a fucking airbus. These guys obviously know their hardcore history (the influences of the band were plain to see from the bassist’s Shellac T-shirt, which was apparently gifted by the very hand of the speccy fruitcake Albini himself) – and this was a fair joyous fusion of Big Black, Iron Monkey, Black Flag and Kyuss. Think a waaay gnarlier QOTSA and you won’t be far off the mark. However. Josh Homme and friends are damp as a wet Christmas live – not so these fellows. The towering brute on lead guitar and vocals was obviously the alpha monkey of the group, but the ball of dreddlocks on the four string was pretty much the star of the show, totally going off to his dirty, dirty music. Point of note is that they even drove the uber-geek front man from Fights and Fires away from the front of the stage, eventually. It was either the aural onslaught, or he needed a pee. Maybe the latter.

A few words about the drummer, too. Every stick man should be slightly off his nut. Goes with the job description. And the nuttier they are the harder they play. And in my book, he (or she) can never play too hard. And the wiry little Iggy-a-like in this band played like he hated that shaky kit more than the man who had just killed his cat. Brutal.

Last on – Layers. These cheeky chappies really look the part. A very modern, good-looking bunch of lads – including the mega-bearded chrome dome in the Billy Talent T-shirt on lead, who had a style and stage presence evident in the face of tech adversity he had to gamely deal with. Bouncy and energetic as hell and no shortage of poke – if they’d been able to get into their stride fully this band would probably have taken the roof off. The pool of hip kids they had clustered around the stage were visibly bursting to hear them play, and they coped with the tech difficulties that interrupted the set very well indeed – launching right back into it with vigour and professionalism once the various guitar issues got sorted. Their sound is decidedly “now” – taking influences from hardcore and pop punk, even some pure metal – and mixing it freely with no mind to genre or orthodoxy – with soul and R&B. Plan B meets Let Live? That’d actually be a disservice – mainly because the geezer that helped butcher the Sweeney remake hasn’t got an ounce of the spunky freshness of the vocalist in this outfit – and nowhere near his soaring, gospel-quality delivery. You’ll make good pros gentlemen, if all the internet whispers about you come to fruition. Ones to watch indeed.

And finally… just a shout out to the people behind these gigs too. Every town dreams of having its own scene. Well, any town with self-awareness and personality. And through the efforts of a local crew of promoters (Surprise Attacks) there may, just may, be the first sparks of one starting here. With things apparently mobilising behind the scenes, a stable of bands representing for the local area (Fights and Fires and Thirty Six Strategies not least), and some fairly awesome gigs – Crucial Section, Baby Godzilla, HDQ – booked at this same venue (the Firefly) over the Autumn, here’s hoping that the Wu really is on the rise. Who knows. Or dares to dream.

4.5 out of 5 high fives!

Review: The Lagan – Where’s Your Messiah Now?

The Lagan are an Anglo-Irish celtic punk / rock band from Kingston Upon Thames in the UK – and Co Down in the old Country. And this is their debut long player. And you basically get exactly what it says on the tin. Featuring such diverse lyrical subject matter as drinking, fighting, lapsed Catholic guilt, manual work, drinking, a long history of social and economic displacement, drinking, maids with nut brown hair, fighting, drinking, emigration to the USA, drinking, redemption in the next life, and drinking – these ten songs make no pretence or attempt to go beyond the traditional Irish tropes. And yes, of course it had to end with ‘Fields of Athenry’. But this is utterly, utterly impossible to dislike.

There’s an honesty and a joy – reflected in the liner notes that essentially say thank you for listening, we just did this for fun – that is infectious. Some tracks – ‘Same Shite Different Night’, ‘Sailing East’, ‘Sunny Day in Southie’ – are front and centre Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly celtic-P fare. And pleasingly spiky. The rest is a more mainstream-sounding proposition, including several simply arranged trad Irish folk songs. Think the Dubliners with full colour tat sleeves, flesh tunnels in their ears and slightly more frisky politics. And you’d be about there.
These boys are currently on tour – a tour which, perhaps predictably completely avoids the West Midlands. It does however cross Yorkshire about four times and hit Luton in the Autumn. I guess the promoters in the second city – which has ever floated on a sea of plastic paddies and proud canal diggers, and where every second person on the southside of the city claims at least part Irish descent – must be a bit shit. More fool them. Get this lot at the Irish Centre, the Castle or the Dubliner in Birmingham and you’d be guaranteed both a sellout crowd and a fucking riotous celtic-P up of epic proportions.

Ultimately, this is the musical equivalent of ten straight pints of liquid craic. Like Guinness served properly – ice cold and with a shamrock neatly played in the top – it slips down easily. And just over half an hour later, even when you’re cut to the bone and fighting in the car park, you’re still smiling.

4.5 out of 5 high fives!