I’m not falling for it. Not like Jeffery Archer and all those other stupid Tory MP’s did. Rather I’ll throw it out at the start: even if this 7″ featured amusing fart noises made with armpits, overlain onto sitar crunk breakdowns I’d still be singing its praises. I’d still think it was rad. I’m biased, You’ll not lay that conflict of interest stuff on me, I saw it coming. I’m smart.
This new 7″ is spectacular. If you like songs about drinking alone in decaying apartments, falling asleep on trains whilst they roar past smokestacks, and ennui with the city, you’ll be into this so much it’s untrue. If you don’t, then Hatebreed wrote a new record just for you, and it’s absolute fucking garbage.
Harking back to some of their earlier efforts this leads straight on from “Oh! Calcutta!” in delivering another 5 songs to listen too whilst you cycle to work through the deep snowdrifts. I can hear all the best bits of the Broadways and Crimpshrine in this. The lyrics are outstanding as ever, and when they really hit their stride such as “Demons” about fading glory and the passage of time or the heart-on-sleeve start to “Them Angels been Talkin” which doesn’t so much take off, as head for the stratosphere it underscores just why all bands should drink more, tour more, and move to Chicago.
You might have got bored with whisky soaked No Idea-type songs with the last few Dillinger Four albums, and you might raise a jaundiced eye at Gaslight Anthem, but the Lawrence Arms show that 10 years on bands can still be as good as the first listen that blew you away on that compilation CD you bough for four quid from the record shop that’s long since closed down. Fantastic.