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They're back. They're metal, they're pop, they're punk, they're rock n' roll, they're everything that made you fall in love with them the first time, and they're political to boot.
One of my favourite things so far is the tracklisting. Ginger always gives us great song titles ('If Life Is Like A Lovebank, I Want An Overdraft', 'My Baby Is A Headfuck', '29 Times The Pain', to name but three pulled randomly out of my brainbox) and this CD is probably his best selection so far:-
1. Rooting For The Bad Guy
2. The Sweetest Song
3. The Revolution Will Be Televised
4. The New Flesh
5. Slaughtered Authors
6. The Hard Way
7. Inner City Overture
8. Bi-Polar Baby
9. She's All That
10. Destroy All Monsters
And it's the best album of the year, happily.
The only quibble I have with it - at all - is that The Sweetest Song, while utterly awesome as a tune, is scarily angry towards a particular woman... but part of Ginger's thing, and part of his charm as a songwriter is his total devotion to a particular mindset for the duration of a song, punk as catharsis, and anyone who knows anything about him knows that for two years he's been in an emotional war with the mother of his two children. 'Holiday' and 'Smile In Denial' off his last solo album, Yoni are especially concerned with how to maintain his family in the light of his deteriorating friendship with his ex of six years, following on from 'Yeah Yeah Yeah' (from the first Ginger & The Sonic Circus album, Valor Del Corazon), which told us in naked details about the fallout from the horrible end of that partnership ("because we're dehydrated inside, from all those tears we cried, and the gap just couldn't get wider between us... and still it does"). It's not a fun song, although the chorus, as is traditional with the boys, is perfect harmonised pop, but that's what you get with The Wildhearts. Warts and all.
Best of all, these are some of his best lyrics ever, better even than those on their horribly overlooked noise-pop-metal album Endless, Nameless, which to date had showcased the Geordie genius' best words so far. Check out 'Rooting For The Bad Guy', which, aside from being a metal masterclass that Lemmy and Steve Harris would give their left testicle to still have the gumption to put on tape, gives us this...
Wyle E Coyote, Cybermen, Tony Montana, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester The Cat, The Triffids, The Fly
Put 'em in lights, put 'em in lights
Falcon Eddie, Doctor Phibes, Captain Hook, Frankenstein, Chupacabra, Bonnie & Clyde
Put 'em in lights, put 'em in lights
Here in the dark while the hero is cheered I give my heart when the villain appears
I wanted Tweety Pie crucified
I'm rooting for the bad guy
I wanted Thunderbirds Kentucky Fried
I'm rooting for the bad guy
Zombies, Jaws and Mysterons
Fu Manchu and Mr Burns
Poison Ivy, Mr Hyde
Put 'em in lights, put 'em in lights
Here in the dark when the villain appears...
I can't rave enough about this. It's actually better than the best rock n' roll album I'd heard so far this year, Fall Out Boy's Infinity On High, which until today I genuinely didn't think he could do, that album being so very incredible.
It's still not easy listening unless, like me, you've been a Wildhearts fan for over a decade. As NME once said, they're too metal to please the indie fans, too pop to please the metal fans, too punk to please the pop fans, and too indie to please the punk fans. But that's what makes them the best rock n' roll band in the country, and probably the world. They hit all the buttons really fucking hard. And their USP, over and above the mammoth songs, which alone should have made Ginger a superstar by now, is quite simply a refusal to compromise. Compromise anything about himself at all at the precise moment of writing, performing, feeling anything at all, so that the song you hear is the sound of his heart beating at the precise time that he wrote it, played it, and screamed his voice raw singing it.
Everything's a snapshot. And this may be their best photo-album ever. The Wildhearts will not let you down, because they have your heart on the sleeve of their shirts alongside their own, and they will kick the living shit out of anyone who tries to dry-clean them.
The New Flesh
WearebornintoatimeofinnocentAmericansattackedfortryingtodotheirjob whilesomeBinLadenmotherfuckertakesthecreditbutinsteadofheadingtoAfghanistan totakehimouttheywenttobombIraqandkillsomefamilies
Childrendiebecauseofsomeimaginaryweaponsandtofindoneofthemanymanyterrorists upontheplanetmeanwhilethepsychopathsaccountableforkillingeveryinnocentareallsittingsafelyoutofrange
Armageddon, orchestrated, televised and exaggerated
We were lied to and we won't get fooled again
We are the new flesh, we are the only ones left
We're the dog you beat down once too much
We're the cornered rat that WILL fight back
We are born into a time where population is divided
Poorandhungrypeoplesharetheplanetwiththewealthyandthemulti-billionindustriespaypoliticiansactorsand musiciansmorethanitwouldtaketoshelterallthehomelessandthegovernmentsignoretheunderfundingof researchingintomentalhealthallowingover70%ofpeopleunder-educatedwhilethesuicidesperannumkeepincreasingandnarcoticskeepthe treatedpacified
Fame and fortune undonated by the overpaid and the over-rated
We were lied to and we won't get fooled again
We are the new flesh, we are the only ones left
We're the dog you beat down once too much
We're the cornered rat that WILL fight back
We are
We are
We are
THE NEW FLESH |
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