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Gallows ‘Grey Britian’ – British Punk Rock is back!

Posted on 07. Sep, 2009 by vincenthofmann in Music, featured, music-reviews

There’s nothing like the british punk rock attitude. Or rather there was nothing quite like the brit-punk attitude whose flame burnt like the dustbins alight at night on dead end streets. Urban decay, whimsical drug use and a morbid fascination with governmental dogma made these riders of the night, difficult to respect and hard not to admire.

The Pistols for instance held up a battered british flag, intimately associated to their idealistic patriotic stance on a nation to which they owed their venomous accents, and spat in the general direction of the royals, the body politrick and the pigs. Rebel’s with a snarl and a yell aimed at all those who sought to impose structure on their world – rebels who have died, sold their snarls to the Discovery Channel and are almost long forgotten in the minds of the young music aficionado.

Forgotten not in the minds of Gallows, a punk/hardcore band which only very recently popped up on my radar. They proclaim to be London’s rats, yell like a cop being tortured by Mr Blonde and ominously remind us of the pistol’s yelling “God save the Queen
she ain’t no human being. There is no future in England’s dreaming…” with lines like:

The London metropolitan, all the fucking clergy men,
child abusers, national front, rapists, racists, all fucking scum.
And they march hand in hand to rape our green and pleasant land.

Dust to dust, earth to earth,
the new born babies drowned at birth.
And there’s no future for England’s son,
there nine years old and they all carry guns.
Take out your crowbars, take out your knives,
drain out your blood we all deserve to die.

Inspired by the early 80s hardcore scene (Minor Threat, Black Flag), 90s Swedish hardcore bands such as Refused, the metal riffs of Mastodon and the discordance of key underground bands such as Swing Kids, and JR Ewing, Gallows’ premier goal was to wrestle punk back from the fashion police and re-invest it with passion, brutality and menace.

Grey Britian, Gallows’ latest album, explained by Frank Carter (vocalist) as being about the fact that “Britain is fucked. Grey Britain is all about what’s going on socially, politically and economically in the UK and how it affects us.”

Grey Britian’s subject matter is reminiscent of that of early Sabbath, with doomy corpse riddled lyrics and warnings of evil clergy men, corrupt cops and a failed system which seeks to fuck those it purports to safeguard.

The record? The record is best described by Ben Myers of Mojo who says “Not since the Pistols and The Specials has a pissed off provincial band so clearly meant it”. Gallows‘ Grey Britain is as brutal as a vagabond coughing in your face and pounds the dance floor like a hefty HXC kid kicking wildly at his formidable invisible ninja opponent

Gallows have me inspired to listen to music again. Made me look to the back of my cupboard for my band merchandise and ensured I went out and got a pair of decent earphones to take them with me through the playgrounds of the indolent masses…the shopping malls.

Without further a do, I present you Gallows:

Find out more at http://www.gallows.co.uk/

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Tags: gallows, grey britian, metal, Music, Music Review, punk, rock