Diamond Head
Coffin Train SILVER LINING
Still Diamond geezers after all
these years.
Diamond Head have become so
mythic in the gold-gilded ledgers
of metal history that it’s almost
impossible not to compare
whatever is happening now with
the DH stuff Lars Ulrich was
impressing his bandmates with
way back when. But Diamond
Head have always kept moving,
evolving, perfecting.
Coffin Train is their second
album with third vocalist
Rasmus Andersen, and his
powerful, emotive vocals
continue to push the band into
places they haven’t been before.
While the whole affair is still
solidly rooted in the Brit-metal of
the Bronz label era, expansive
stormers like Shades Of Black and
Death By Design sound more like
latter-day Soundgarden than like
any other NWOBHM band still
in operation. There’s an almost
proggy complexity to this
album’s songs, but the hooks,
flash and the sheer wall-melting,
roof-rattling riff majesty of
mainman Brian Tatler are all still
in place. Overall this is a fine
addition to the DH legacy.
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SleazegrinderJohnny Moped
Lurrigate Your Mind
DAMAGED GOODS
He’s back, basically... Lock up
your maces.
1977’s Live At The Roxy WC2 was
an essential UK punk artefact. It
helped launch Adverts,
Buzzcocks, X-Ray Spex and
more, but its star turn was
Croydon’s Johnny Moped. But
with vocal stylings akin to an
impassioned Alf Garnett,
a ready belch and a chunky
dustman’s demeanour,
bludgeon-toting frontman
Moped (aka Paul Halford)
wasn’t exactly ripe for major-
label-assisted pop stardom.
Following a modest commercial
performance by debut album
Cycledelic (a heady blending of
proto-street punk with lashed-‘n’-
lairy biker-psych yobbishness),
Johnny Moped effectively
disappeared. An unexpected
second set lurked out in ‘91, but
Moped finally regained his ‘form’
in ‘16 with the Dick Crippen-
produced It’s A Real Cool Baby.
And here he is again, back with
Crippen, stalwart guitarist Slimey
Toad at his side, making mayhem,
elevating punky psychosis to new
peaks of baffling, intoxicated
ludicrousness. Lyrically we’ve got
beer, LSD, failed romance, peoplePerry Farrell
Kind Heaven BMG
being nailed to the floor and, on
Black Witch Climax Blues Band
Genetic Breakdown, some
insightful stuff about guest
guitarist Captain Sensible getting
sacked from cleaning toilets at
Croydon’s Fairfield Halls.
Johnny Moped’s brain: still
a great place to visit, but you
wouldn’t want to live there.
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Ian FortnamJohn Fairhurst
The Divided Kingdom
UNMANAGEABLE
Gravel-throated Wigan
bluesman gets heavy
Although he’s
highly rated in
blues circles as
a virtuoso on
the resonator
acoustic guitar, London-based
Lancastrian John Fairhurst still
loves it loud. This crowd-funded
solo album comes thundering
out of your speakers, and it’s not
just guitar, bass and drums that
are on the warpath. ‘Fuck
austerity... Fuck inequality... Fuck
your hypocrisy,’ he growls on the
title track, then the stoner churn
of Blood And Fire further sets the
tone for an album that rages
against social injustice, from
Brexit to poverty via mendacious
politicians. It’s no one-
dimensional rant, though; the
Tom Waits-style menace of Lies
And A .45 and the Mark Lanegan-
esque lament of We Dance The
Merry Dance weave a subtler but
no less effective spell.
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Johnny SharpMammoth Weed
Wizard Bastard
Yn Ol I Annwn HEAVY SOUNDS
Welsh prog-metal voyagers
crank up their space-rock side.
With a take-no-prisoners name
like that, Mammoth Weed
Wizard Bastard really need to
deliver maximum heaviosity on
all fronts. Thankfully, these
Welsh doom-metal psych-prog
sludgelords stretch almost every
available envelope on this, their
third album in four years, adding
extra lashings of analogue synth
oscillation, ghostly cello flurries
and pagan folk-rock incantations
to an already ripe mix.
Occasionally their maximalist
formula drags a little, notably on
the 13-minutes-plus riff grinder
Katyusha, which builds and
builds with too little variation.
But singer Jessica Ball is the
group’s secret weapon, bringing
focus and clarity to a molten
maelstrom of grunts, drones and
throbbing ring modulations.Jane’s Addiction mainman’s album featuring
members of JA, Foo Fighters and The Cars.J
ane’s Addiction were a rum group at
their late-80s height. They commanded
a broad range of devotees; anyone
from a Guns N’ Roses fan to a Pixies fan
could be into Jane’s Addiction, and very
often were. Part of it was down to Perry
Farrell’s voice, such a potent, silvery,
piercing weapon, so broadly expressive.
Now Farrell is back, with his first new
material in a decade, on an album
co-produced by Farrell and Tony Visconti
and featuring appearances from, among
others, Dhani Harrison (son of George)
Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins
and the orchestral contributions of
Hollywood composer Harry Gregson-
Williams. As ever, and in the best sense,
Farrell aims high and wide.
Kind Heaven straddles the ages. (red, white
and blue) Cheerfulness feels like a studio jam,
a stomping singalong that could have
been recorded in the Give Peace A Chance
era. Punk Pirate President, however, with its
laser-injection guitar and pointillistic
21st-century synth touches brings us
bang up to date. It’s anti-Trump, of course;
any American rocker making a major
statement can’t avoid the matter of the
45th president, even if they would
ordinarily prefer not to make explicitly
political statements. Farrell skewers the
post-truther and moves swiftly on.
Snakes Have Many Hips follows (‘You makea lousy friend so I made you my lover’), its
orchestration a reminder of The Beatles
in full psychedelic flower. ‘We could all use
a dose of psychedelia’, Farrell acknowledges.
Machine Girl is white-hot stuff, a fluid,
sinuous, acidic affair that again
demonstrates how au fait Farrell is with
modernity. One mixes treated vocals with
Jane Says-type acoustic riffing. Again, the
use of available studio technology is
welcome in expanding the sonic palette,
although personally I would have
preferred Farrell’s vocals a little higher in
the overall mix.
Where Have You Been All My Life sees
Farrell revisiting the first principles of
rock’n’roll cool à la Primal Scream,
a recurring dial-tone motif adding
a nicely alienating effect to the collage.
More Than I Could Bear is lavish, pulling
together all of the past and present forces
that make up this record on a single
track. Spend The Body is a duet featuring
the warm, lucid vocals of Farrell’s spouse,
Etty Lau Farrell. Finally, Let’s All Pray For
This World returns to the idealistic note
on which the album opens, ecclesiastical,
chanting, concluding on an ominous
single cello phrase that could have
featured in The World At War. Kind Heaven
is album for all ages, all people.
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David StubbsME
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