The Enemy are squarely in the tradition of the early Clash and the Specials: plain-speaking music that addresses Britain's forgotten towns and forgotten teens. Hailing from Coventry, they know of what they speak. Theirs is a big sound for a three-piece, matched by big themes. As they state on Elephant Song: "Ever feel so small, stood in a world that owes you nothing at all."
There's No Time For Tears takes you to "the morning after the revolution", while 51st State and Don't Break the Red Tape offer succinct anti-government polemics. They are less convincing on slow numbers like the Springsteen-esque No Time to Cry, where the production and the vocal delivery force attention on prosaic phrases like "a concrete jungle" and "a million miles of traffic jams".
That's the problem with social realism, but the Enemy do their best to vary their sound and mode of address. There is always pleasure in hearing a young group stretch out - as they do on the climactic Silver Spoon - and they unveil a great line in Be Somebody: "No one ever gives you anything for free/ Unless you start sleeping with the BBC."
Both these records will be deservedly successful. They both achieve what they set out to do, which is to inject into British rock music the sense of standing for or against something, the feeling that there is something more at stake than money, fame and self, the belief that human beings are important. Although they are not particularly aimed at me, I applaud their spirit.
• Download
Silver Spoon (The Enemy)
The Enemy, Music for the People, Warners, 4 stars
*Source: The Observer
* As seen on: http://theenemy.eu
* OFFICIAL Enemy website: http://theenemy.com
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