There couldn’t be a more relevant time for Public Enemy to return when the question of race looms large in America and what it means to be black in a country in a world post the fatal shooting of Michael Brown due to police brutality and the civil unrest that has occurred in Ferguson consequently.
The album begins with No Sympathy for the Devil, a song in dialogue with the Rolling Stones song whilst also acting as a criticism to Obama of the people he got in bed with when he became president. The song questions just how much power a black president can have in the White House. “Didn’t you see this coming?/The great satan, a global terrorist/Didn’t you see the smoke?” The price for power is to become a puppet for the ambitions of white hegemony and to become powerless, a figurehead who can’t see they’re sitting on a bonfire until they smell their feet burning. It also acts as a criticism of America, and how far the country has fallen from the American Dream of freedom and prosperity for all. Me to We is a song about reclaiming that dream, with the constant refrain of “we the people” referring to The Preamble to the United States Constitution. The song is one about working towards rebuilding the spirit of the Constitution and making an America that has previously only existed in dreams a reality. Earthizen is an explosive track that acts as a mnemonic, running from A-Z, and is quite possibly the strongest track of the whole album, and probably the strongest use of the mnemonic as a song since IRAQ by Flobots. Q – Question is it right or is it wrong? R – Right on, listen to the song S – Sacrifice for the team T – Time to make something mean U – Means we under arrest V – Victims of the system stress W – We instead of me the narrative The song questions black identity in a narrative defined by white men, and the sacrifices inherent in having your racial identity and your destiny under control by someone else. It says that America is a broken system, and that the victims of that system are black lives and liberty, and that it’s only by everyone working together and changing the narrative from one of selfishness to one of selflessness can the country truly get better. In summation, whilst it’s not Public Enemy’s strongest album (there’s a few duff tracks in there like Honky Talk Rules, Praise the Loud, and Lost in Space that just didn’t work for me) they still know how to bring it and produce powerful, resonant songs and protest rap at a time when we really need to hear it. In a post-Ferguson world America needs Public Enemy to amplify the voices of the disenfranchised and the betrayed - to remind us the American Dream isn't a reality for all, but that it can be.
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A recursive siren sounds as if in response to a distress call, punctuated by bass and bleeps. Sometimes I Feel So Deserted is lyrically sparse, having only one chorus, plaintively sung “Sometimes you feel so deserted/But hold on cos hope is on the way,” building to a crescendo and offering a feeling of hope, that loneliness doesn’t last so long as you have people who care about you.
Go features the sublime rap lyricism of Q-Tip, and begins with a bass like the slap of an arse. It’s a song of motion, of breaking the mold, of never daring to stop or you’ll die. The song beings with the lyrics “Can’t think, can’t sleep, can’t breathe,” trapped between insomnia, panicking and feeling trapped the song is frantic 3.40, whilst also being an exhortation to get out and dance with the opposite sex using the imagery of assassination as metaphor for seduction. The line “Mannequins say “We breakin’ the mold”/Breakin’ out and we breakin’ the codes” perfectly encapsulates the kind of people who blindly follow trends whilst being enslaved by them, not realising the consumerist bullshit that’s been sold to them, and that rather than breaking the mold they’re just stepping further into it. Under Neon Lights features the intriguingly eccentric St Vincent, and is a trippy, detached view on a person’s life. Like Talking Head’s song Once in a Lifetime, there is a disassociation from the protagonist’s life and her desires whilst dwelling on how she has no husband, no wife, no bonds left in this world. It’s a rejection of the societal expectations of marriage and the role women have to play – this is echoed by the line “is this really what I want?” She has only the intention to kill herself and her singular desire “all I want’s a view tonight.” The titular track, Born in the Echoes, actually comes quite late in the proceedings, and echoes the cold detachment of Under Neon Lights and also the state between awake and asleep, of feeling a different type of awareness by having your feet in two worlds, of “being caught inbetween.” The song also suggests a type of synesthesia, of being able to see “rings of sound,” echoing the image of being trapped between the intersection of two circles like a Venn diagram of sound, of “being born in the echoes,” and influenced by the fringes of music. Wide Open featuring Beck in trance mode, and is another standout track on the album about a man opening himself up emotionally, but drifting apart from his lover. He knows that love is going to hurt him, but he can’t be anything that he isn’t, he has to remain open to love. Despite the forlorn lyrics, the whole song feels like drifting in the ocean whilst looking at the stars. Yes, love doesn’t last, but he will love again, and that’s what matters. I’d say Born in the Echoes is a return to form, but really the Chemical Brothers never really went away. “Hi, hi, howdy, howdy, hi, hi!/While everyone is minus, you could call me multiply/Just so you know, yes, yes, I’m that guy/You could get five fingers and I’m not waving “hi” ”
On the Regular is a fierce proclamation of Shamir’s sexuality with an envious ability to fire off intricate rhymes without missing a beat. The song’s a call to arms for Shamir, defining who he is whilst refusing to be defined or taking any guff from any swine. This is his stage, this is his time, and he’ll be damned if you try to drag him down from it. The first single is effortlessly funky and sexy with an incomparable beat that I double dare you not to dance to. Vegas is about the titular city, about its energies and what fuels it – kerosene, dreams and industry, trying to reach for the stars but getting dragged down by reality of the city and its disdain for your entitled views of your own destiny. In for the Kill is about the self-sacrifice you choose to make when you run away with someone and cut all ties, or perhaps just when you decide that who you are isn’t who you’ve been and who you’ve been around. The song is about surrendering yourself to the romance of abandonment and the romanticism of the new, but there are signs of regret and wistfulness in the fact that the character in the song wants to say goodbye, urging his loved ones not to be upset, that one day he’ll return – changed. Shamir has the countertenor voice of Neneh Cherry crossed with Prince with all of the sass and verve of Bowie in the Boys Keep Swinging video, each song like a lip-stick smear rebellion and a two fingered salute to traditional gender roles. If you're not dancing to this yet, then you should be. Drones continues Matt Bellamy’s fascination with all things conspiracy theory and the notion that we’re living in a dystopian now rather than a dystopian future - one in which we are under constant surveillance. However, the whole album comes across as a student’s first reaction to 1984 or The Invisibles, with little in the way of any nuance, critical thought or anything interesting to say. The album is a victim of Muse’s prior success with better albums that have paved this ground more intelligently and with better commentary. This is Muse for the masses – regurgitated and simplified and trying their best to become Queen. Do yourself a favour, listen to Absolution, Origin of Symmetry, Black Holes & Revelations or Showbiz – they’re the cutting edge, this is just a butter knife spreading their material far too thin.
Originally printed in Issue #323 of the Kirkby Extra, July 2015. Like a lapsed Catholic on the threshold of atheism, I had mixed feelings about Faith No More’s return. The last we heard of them was in the year of our lord 1997, and I had to wonder if the band had anything left to say or if the well had run dry. So, join me, fellow sinners as I genuflect and reflect upon the latest work of Faith No More.
The titular track is about a man struggling with his faith or lack thereof, a fitting subject considering the band’s name. A man who worships at the altar of a god he doesn’t know or understand, “I’m coming Lord, I’m on my way/Worshipping at an altar of no-one/Can’t remember which God is my wine,” who despairs at the trappings and rituals of a religion he no longer understands or empathises with. It is quite fitting that an album so focused on rising again is called Sol Invictus, as Sol Invictus was the official sun god of the latter Roman Empire, whilst also symbolising the band’s own return after an absence of more than a decade. It’s almost like the album, and this song especially is the band questioning themselves and asking “can we still do it?” Superhero is the first single, and stands up next to the classics like Epic and We Care A Lot. The song ruminates on the subject of whether the superman would be a leader of men or just another puppet leader getting his/her strings pulled by corporate powers, publicly manipulated for political ends. It’s definitely hinted at the latter when Mike Patton sings “Leader of men/get back in your cage.” But in the end the sun rises and the myth fades leaving us only bitter reality, and then the cycle begins anew when the question is posed “Leader of men/Will you become one of them?” Sunny Side Up begins with Patton’s seductive soul funk growl of “I’ll be your Leprecaun/Shamrock or lucky charm,” and is an ear pleasing excuse for Patton to aurally seduce the audience in the same way he did with Faith No More’s cover of Easy, whilst using food metaphors for sex feeding into the idea that both are a biological imperative that feed into the basic human need of hunger. It seems that 2015 is the year for come backs, and so far I’m happy to say I haven’t been disappointed. I haven’t had quite so much sacrilegious fun since I got kicked out of the choir for fighting. It’s been a strong year for 90’s bands and artists returning to resurgence, with the likes of Blur, The Prodigy (who arguably never really went away), Belle & Sebastian and Sleater Kinney all producing sonically interesting and solid work. So I was intrigued by what I heard of Gaz Coombes mellow new album.
Buffalo is an emotional exhortation about the wish to return home, to begin again and return to a time of innocence. Time and experience has made him feel jaded and emotionally damaged (“cos all my tears felt like sand [...]/round in circles lost my way”) and like he’s trapped in an endless recursive loop – an ouroboros of weariness. 20/20 is an eerie song of emotional frailty, of wanting to sacrifice yourself for the one you love (“I’d take the hurricane for you”), of losing your identity in them and not being able to operate without them. It’s a song of interdependence, of keeping each other safe in the fading twilight and coming to the end of a turbulent journey to come out alright on the other side. The Girl Who Fell to Earth sounds very much like a John Lennon track – when he sings “I just wish we could start over,” it’s very reminiscent of the song “Just Like Starting Over,” whilst also being an allusion to the famous Bowie film “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Although not lyrically complex, and quite sentimental, it’s a gentle, lilting song that’s a good foil for the turmoil of 20/20. The tone of the album is completely unlike the cheeky antics of Supergrass, and is a much more mature and evocative affair. It sounds a lot more akin vocally to Thom Yorke, with touches of Arcade Fire in tracks like The English Ruse and strains of Jeff Buckley can be heard in Seven Walls. Whilst occasionally at risk from being mawkish and overly sentimental, for the most part the album’s a success – a confluence of influences that work well together and make for a melancholy, but powerful and touching album. Everything Everything have returned with their 3rd album with plenty of art rock licks and catchy hooks to spare. Distant Past is an instant foot thumping single, with words sung in a steady staccato matching the drum beat about some kind of immortal thief who brutally plunders through history, but wants to be saved from his distant past or be returned there. Regret is about the manifold regrets that plague humanity, and how we all imagined our lives would be better but that inaction, lack of will to make dreams manifest and apathy prevent us from doing anything about it, whilst also being a catchy and mocking/self-mocking anthem that examines the human frailty inherent in us all whilst having a good laugh with it all the same.
The Wheel (Is Turning Now) is an examination on the fear of mortality and is redolent of the image of the wheel of fortune – one moment you’re at the top of the world, another moment you’re being crushed by the same wheel that crested you on high, whilst simultaneously someone else takes your place at the top of the wheel. The theme of fortune continues seamlessly onto Fortune 500, in which a thief is breaking into Buckingham Palace for one last heist to ensure the future of his progeny whilst also thinking about how he’s a slave to his destiny, fated to be a thief whilst at the same time being told by the voices in his head that “he’s won.” But perhaps my favourite line comes from No Reptiles, which sums up perfectly the feeling of being a soldier thrust into a war by people who have never fought in a war with no more idea of why you’re fighting the other side other than you have been told to. “Oh baby it's alright, it's alright to feel like a fat child in a pushchair old enough to run/Old enough to fire a gun” Everything Everything possess great talent at taking a montage of striking and sometimes horrifying images and stitching them together to make a compelling narrative of song. Replete with images of war, horror, mortality, regret and possibly an overarching story of an immortal/possibly vampiric thief, I have no reservations recommending this. Raw and brilliant, yet polished and hard like a diamond. If you’d asked me if I thought Franz Ferdinand and The Sparks forming a supergroup, I’d say “oh ffs,” and then they’d say, “oh that’s what they’re called! How did you guess?” Johnny Delusional is a mad baroque pop track about falling in love with passing strangers, yet also borders on the parodic as the band possess the self-awareness to poke fun of themselves for it. This is epitomized by the song Collaborations Don’t Work, an obviously tongue in cheek examination of supergroups whilst also a dismissal of possible detractors. But thankfully in this case the collaboration did work, with effortlessly catchy tracks like So Desu Ne and Save Me From Myself contributing to a sonically diverse experience melding the art rock sensibilities of Franz Ferdinand with the manic chamber pop of Sparks breathing new life into both bands to make something truly new.
Originally printed in Issue #322 of the Kirkby Extra, July 2015. I'm on my holidays next week, so you'll just have to live without me for a week. It's a desolate trial, I know, but I'm sure you'll pull through. ;-) I'll have another review up for you guys on 21/06/15. So stay frosty, troops, we'll meet again soon.
Britpop gods Blur return with The Magic Whip, their first album since 2003’s Think Tank. The album, the product of a single five day session in a Hong Kong recording studio is affected as much by both Albarn and Coxon’s solo work and the Gorrilaz, and lends to an interesting mix of old and new, and it mostly works. Lonesome Street is evocative of the band circa Parklife, complete with old school scratchy guitar and “woo, woos,” whilst tracks like Pyongyang evoke the feeling of a cold, dystopian future with synths and beeps overlaid guitars eliciting feelings of melancholy, and translocation in an unfamiliar country. The album feels like a return to form for the band, and now they’ve reformed for what might be one last jam for old time’s sake. If this is their swan song, you couldn’t ask for more.
Originally printed in Issue #321 of Kirkby Extra, June 2015. |
Martin Summerfield
Monthly music columnist for the Kirkby Extra, sometimes article writer for Get Into This. Freelance writer/artist/maker. Archives
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