A very welcome smash-and-grab return of rapier wit and voluminous, muscular, sinewy sound by the legendary cult post-hardcore Cardiff/Newcastle/Bristol trio of Andrew ‘Falco’ Falcous and co, their first studio LP since 2004’s The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire. Frontman Falco has variously been busy with other projects, notably six Future of the Left albums and seven of his witty side-project Christian Fitness. The band is now drummer Jack Egglestone (who arrived in 2003) and newer bassist Damien Sayell. A force of nature at gigs, they are still a fantastic earful on record, pulling no punches, with a salvo of thunderous numbers and biting irony, from opener Unpopular Parts of a Pig (“‘Delicate seeds come from delicate flowers’/ That was the horseshit she fed me for hours”) to The Digger You Deep, Way Of The Exploding Dickhead (“The surge surges precisely / Precisely to the value of nothing”), People Person (“A lot of people like to be wise after the event … The truth is more complex than that / According to your fucking dad/ A lot of peoplе like their heroеs bald and fat”) Chekhov’s Guns (“If I had a bad day every time that I'd said I had a bad day/ Then I wouldn't be the owner of this snooker hall”) or Autofocus On The Prime Directive (“Better to kiss the ring than be corrosive / So says my guidebook to medieval Chepstow”). But scratch (or dig) deeper and there are many other punchy joys to be found in twisty lyric and deafening riff, from Kafka-eque Novelist Franz (“Tell me you're Banksy without being Banksy”) Cops and Coppers to closer Hate The Pois, with these cutting lines on the industry and more: “Yes, haters waste the hours that haters waste / But, ma'am, you own your own mistakes/ That's right, you own your own mistakes / But not your back-catalogue.” Back with a bang. Out on Ipecac Recordings.
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