Crowbar – Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes

Mawnin’. The first truly vital release of 2019 got to the rock and roll world a fortnight in. Frank Carter and his band of merry men have had album number three in the can for a while now. The hardest working band in the UK took the last half of 2018 a little easier than the had the previous 30 plus months. That’s not to say they were completely inactive. Since the (hashtag) Summer of Snakes there’s been the odd big dog show (And a BrewDog one). There’s been a significant amount of social media activity, the live album 23 and some dates to support it and there’s been various tectonic shifts in the lives of the key players.

But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to see what Rattlesnakes 3.0 actually sounds like.

In just a pinch over 2 minutes a new smooth edged concrete slab of building block punk heralds in their next phase. It’s slick. The production job on here is deliciously high end. There’s an industrial edge in the intro percussion and a bass wub which may put folks of a certain vintage in mind of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Dr Who theme.

All this is in the opening few seconds, as a wordy lyric of universal proportions works it’s way up to the song proper.

“We all come from an explosion in the sky, one day there was nothing and the next there was life”

That’s a pretty expansive and philosophical picnic blanket to set out a chorus of encouragement for the listener to tool up and get busy dismantling.

“Who do you think you are? It’s the death of happiness, go and get the crowbar”

So we know album three is going to sound suitably discontent. It has to if it’s going to house this objection made song. We know it as the albums titled End Of Suffering (in Buddhist text this is also translated as reaching Nirvana), it features Tom Morello on one track (the as yet to be revealed Tyrant Lizard King, three guesses what that’s about) and we know this because it has the band who personify the mood in the UK right now behind it.

In the week our overlords crap out on our nation once again I ask you, who’s up for an impending furious punk land mark to kick off the year?

The holiday is over. 2019 starts proper right here with a clarion call to get up and get changing stuff for the better.

Welcome back Frank, welcome to the future.