With an insane racket of avalanching drums, twisting twin guitar lines and colloquial, droll social commentary, the casual music fan could be forgiven for reacting to opening track ‘Born Again In Birmingham’ by asking “Who? Mark E Smith?” The sound immediately presented here is very close to The Fall circa 1982 (i.e. The Fall at their post-punk peak), but rather than another throwaway, pale imitation, this is Smith’s contemporary Robert Lloyd and band, The Nightingales.
And with their first new album in 20 years, they’ve produced a fascinating time warp. A curious punk-post-punk skew on modern observations of “career guitarists”, “Buffering 87% Completed”, with contemporary social standings and stigmas questioned in a way music has failed in for far too long. Almost anti-evolutionary in commitment to the sound of their time, perhaps the most admirable aspect of this album is that 27 years after the original band’s formation, Lloyd’s group maintains the off-kilter experimentalism that made the early post-punk movement so engaging. Not that this is entirely successful – ‘UK Randy Mom Epidemic’ is a mess, falling into the old punk trap of energetic discord pushing the tune and topic almost entirely out the picture.
As though realising this, the album suddenly makes a handbrake turn, throwing out two country numbers (one rockabilly, one romantically melancholy), a menacing rendition of Kevin Coyne’s ‘Good Boy’ and a fuzzy garage rock manifesto in ‘Workshy Wunderkid’ before rounding the album off with a lamenting cover of Kinks rarity, ‘There’s A New World Just Opening For Me’.
And maybe there is. This album is a warning to artful young pretenders to watch their backs – the pros who inspired them are still inspirational, still exceptional and still exciting.
