PRESS: The Enemy 'Music For The People' - Review

THE-FLY.CO.UK - First Listen: The Enemy 'Music For The People'

Review By: JJ Dunning

So you think you know all about The Enemy? Just two hobbits and a beanpole, making music for huddle-cuddle lads to yell at each other between gulps of Kronenberg down the local indie disco? Well, cast those preconceptions aside ye buffoons. The Coventry Mods aren’t here for an easy ride. Drummer Liam Watts tells us, “We don’t wanna be in the same place as the first album. It still sounds like The Enemy, but where they should be two years down the road.” We wrap our ears around, ‘Music For The People’, and see how they’ve matured...

‘Elephant Song’
According to Liam, Elephant Song’s massive riff made it a sure-fire choice to start the album from more or less the moment the band had written it. Signifying this album’s grandiose sense of theatre, the riff is saved until we’ve sat through nearly two minutes of The Stone Roses’ ‘Breaking Into Heaven’-esque procrastinating (minus the jungle bongos, burbling springwaters, and parrots guffing, thank the lord). The initial sense of dread is suspended, however, as when the plodding guitar finally does arrive, it’s devastating, ensconced in swathes of strings and latched onto a brutalism that reminds us of The Music's 'Welcome To The North', in a reassuringly massive way.

‘No Time For Tears’
Hold on. There’s a piano on this. And it’s immediately backed by a backwards drum that sounds like it might be full of sand. Then comes the guitar, and a heightening swirl of something, and here’s Tom for the first time where we can hear what he’s saying. “The morning aff-ta/The revoloo sho” he spits in that ASBO-chic style of his where he’s not really finishing the words properly and sounds like his mouth might be full of Hubba Bubba and Wotsits. “This song is about how no matter how shit things are getting or how hard and ridiculous the struggle is, you can’t give up the fight.” Says Tom on this bit of paper we’ve got here. Cue warbling female vocals a la Pink Floyd’s ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ and a chorus that sounds like a seriously pissed off Five. And although that sounds completely shit, it’s actually ace, like Black Grape gone rock.

‘51st State’
Where ‘No Time For Tears’ was on the money (literally) talking about current affairs, this song kind of misses the boat a bit. “This is the 51shhhttayyy/where democracy has failed/with a war on our con SHUNS/and blood under our nails” sneers Clarkey over a thumping bass and a jangling piano that sounds a bit like the synth on ‘Rock The Casbah’. Not bad, but now Barack’s in the hotseat, and Guantanamo’s been boarded up, isn’t everyone feeling a bit more upbeat about the world situay SHUN?

‘Sing When You’re In Love’
Ah, now the ambition is really starting to kick in. Where the first three tracks towered above us screaming, this ballad creeps at us, never breaking eye contact. It begins with acoustic and electric guitars gently sparring with one another. Then comes the piano again. Tom is crooning, “A thousand cheap boozers where young lovers meet”. The harmonies are pseudo-chants that will stoke festival crowds into thuggish, baying mobs with a collective heart of gold. “Every tear in your eye, every lump in your throat, every beat in your heart that won’t let you let go” they’ll bay. Which is an ambitious leap from “Ooo-way-oo-way-oh-oh-oh”.

‘Last Goodbye’
The most stripped song on the album. An acoustic guitar intro is backed with some subtle stringwork, and Tom delivers a paean to suicide. “If you want me, come and get me, I’m leaving this world behind” he sings. Lyrically and musically it’s another brave stride away from the brazen riots of ‘We’ll Live And Die In These Towns’, which is cool, but The Enemy, gently hustling cymbals, and sombre, deep-meaning lyricism make tricky bedfellows.

‘Nation Of Checkout Girls’
Liam’s drums thump, Tom snarls, the other one just sort of thrums, then we hit a by-numbers Enemy chorus that sounds like a b-side off their last album. Meanwhile, grocers up and down Britain are shutting their doors for good, too tiny and puny to stand up to the might of the faceless corporate pigs who are picking apart our communities by stealing our young and training them in the ways of the machine that goes “BOOP!” when you wave your sausages at it. BORING.

‘Don’t Break The Red Tape’
At least half of this sounds exactly like The Clash’s ‘London Calling’, except the lyrics are a vicious swipe at the nation’s state of disrepair. “Welcome to England, where there is no fun/Where there is no choice for any of us/There is no left, there is no right/Labour’s a joke/Just another Thatcherite”. A stinging blast of vitriol, all delivered in a just-got-a-nostril-full-off-disgusting-guff Joe Strummer scoff. “Try and stop us now” chant the rest of the band. A call to arms to kick against the pricks, but not too hard, or they’ll do you for assault.

‘Be Somebody’
A punchy intro then, “There’s no such thing as a free meal/And there ain’t no future in British Steel/No, the only thing that really makes us smile/Is a joke and a laugh and a night on the tiles”. More piano lurks behind the bridge, (“Nigel got a job in the city/works in a department store”) before that gives way to a typically spit-sodden Enemy chorus. A chorus that is, in fact, an example of The Enemy at their strongest; painting a dowdy grey Britain full of bored kids and unattainable dreams. Although we don’t actually know anyone called Nigel, so there remains the possibility that this might be an entirely other Britain that nobody’s told us about.

‘Keep Losing’
“It’s hard when you’re young, it’s too late when you’re old/You give all you’ve got, then you leave in a box” continues the happy-go-lucky, take-life-in-your-stride cheery lyrical content of this album. Cue yet more strings, huge crashing crescendos, and clean, Bernard Butler-esque guitars, and, is that a Moog?? All this song is lacking is some timpani and a few Jurassic Park dinosaurs doing Gospel Choir dressed as ballerinas. Just subtly, like, to add ‘texture’.

‘Silver Spoon’
In this final track, the world weariness turns to traditional v-flicking, as although this starts off sounding like the Charlatans covering Meatloaf, it quickly plunges into slow-bouncing early Blur territory, which suddenly quadruples in complexity when you realise that the words are “Never had a silver spoon”. None. More. Oasis. Then, in a flurry of looped feedback, the album proper is over.

[Secret Track]
All that remains is to negotiate this largely pointless secret track, which is, in fact, identical to The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’, where Tom sounds like a shrill Rod Stewart. It’s an ambitious tilt at something heart-wrenching though, and that shouldn’t be written off completely…

* As seen on: http://theenemy.eu

* OFFICIAL Enemy website: http://theenemy.com