Cock Sparrer

Hand On Heart CHERRY RED

Street-punk progenitors stand firm.

Uncannily ageless, the most widely respected, enduringly influential yet bizarrely overlooked punk band in the genre’s history have produced an eighth album (52 years into their career) that’s as strong, if not stronger, than anything they’ve ever done.

An East End institution, they continue to be the most unpretentious, most entirely street street-punk band of them all. The blurring hardcore riffs, the ubiquitous ‘woah-oh’-ing mob vocals, the casually deployed anthemic choruses are all pretty par for the course. The Sparrer’s deeply indebted spiritual progeny (Rancid, Dropkick Murphys et al) have long-since mastered the band’s core MO, but what marks out the five-piece (all four original ’72 founders and a newbie rhythm guitarist of a mere 31 years standing) as a monogeneric species is their lyrical content (terrace camaraderie, pub wisdom, loyalty, buying your round, standing your ground) all delivered by Colin McFaull’s unwavering yet emotive, stentorian vocal. Aside from My Forgotten Dream’s unexpected yet effective strings, this is Cock Sparrer business as usual, playing to their strengths. The song titles (With My Hand On My Heart, I Belong To You, Here We Stand) ultimately say it all.

All hail the street-punk Iron Maiden. ■■■■■■■■□□

Ian Fortnam

Sheer Mag

Playing Favorites THIRD MAN

Third album from Philadelphia four-piece.

History plays tricks on the mind. Take Sheer Mag. On one level they’re from the past. There’s Tina Halladay’s Brody Dalleesque vocals, a love of Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac, a riot-grrrl undertow, 10cc-style quirkiness and Kyle Seely’s unbridled, timetranscending guitars. More specifically, I Gotta Go almost evokes Elliott Randall’s sizzling guitar solo on Steely Dan’s Reelin’ In The Years; there are doo-wop backing vocals on When You Get Back; Moonstruck isn’t the only moment to suggest Pilot’s January; Eat It And Beat It pitches its tent somewhere between Slade and Alice Cooper.

So far, so (delightfully) derivative. But there’s a twist. For all that they’ve taken from others – someone here clearly has a wonderful record collection – Sheer Mag are their own men. They don’t even sound dated.

They’re urgent on the title track, where Halladay rattles out rhythm guitarist Matt Palmer’s lyrics with a conviction bordering on zealous, but she’s more considered on Don’t Come Lookin’, which somehow manages to combine raw with tasteful. All rock life is somewhere in this glorious melange.

They’re not perfect, of course. Playing Favorites lacks the career-defining standout that will catapult them into a bigger league, and sometimes the whole is less than the sum of its intriguing parts. They’re well on their way, though. ■■■■■■■□□□

John Aizlewood

Feeder

Black/Red BIG TEETH MUSIC

Expansive double album filled with ambition, expression and attitude.

There’s a lot to be said for a band releasing their first double album late in their career, and into a landscape where anything more than an EP can struggle to find its place on Spotify. There’s something of an Indian summer feel around Feeder with 2019’s vibrant Tallulah and 2022’s very welcome Torpedo both showing something of the prickly energy that surrounded the band when we all spent a summer jumping up and down to Buck Rogers.

It’s a sadly familiar story: success, suicide, a career riding high or in the commercial doldrums. But, to Feeder’s credit, this record sounds as box-fresh as they did all the way back when. It was partly written in lockdown, which shows in the occasional bout of muddy introspection, but Grant Nicholas is on something of a creative flyer in songs like the twisting Lost In The Wilderness and the blistering, choppy pop of songs like Scream and the arm-waving ELF. You can only sit back, sigh and admire their hwyl. ■■■■■■■□□□

Philip Wilding

Mark Knopfler

One Deep River BRITISH GROVE/EMI

Straits mainman delivers one of his best solo records.

To paraphrase Kenneth Tynan on Eugene Ionesco, once you’ve heard all of Mark Knopfler’s solo albums, you’ve heard one of them. There’s one or two reflective world-weary ballads, a couple of reflective worldweary toe tappers, and some finely wrought reflective worldweary character studies that are self-contained short stories. Because the thing about Knopfler’s solo albums – of which this is the tenth, if you don’t count soundtracks – is that it doesn’t matter that they’re all cut from the same cloth, because it’s a brilliant cloth, part Dylan, part folk, part stadium melancholy.

One Deep River is one of Knopfler’s best. These are gorgeous songs, sung in a voice that sounds like it’s lived a life that’s full, and the character songs – which Knopfler has excelled at since Sultans Of Swing – are as poignant as ever. Roll on album number 11. ■■■■■■■■□□

David Quantick

James

Yummy VIRGIN

Manchester alt.rock mainstays teach the whipper-snappers a thing or two about 2024.

Well might Tim Booth rage against ageist stereotypes on Yummy’s most pumped and agile alt.rocker Rogue, rattling through a catalogue of his colourful former lives – punk, samurai, guru, saint and more – and declaring himself, at 64, ‘still mesmerised by cleavage’. There are, after all, bands a third of James’s age who struggle to document the social zeitgeist as astutely and inventively as Manchester’s art-rock legends.

This eighteenth album, continuing the sophisticated air of their second era with its merger of plush future-rock, graceful gospel folk and organic electro-pop, addresses our subservience to technology (Mobile God), the Gen Z mental health crisis (Stay), democracy’s façade (Our World) and the desperate day-to-day struggle of life in post-Truss Britain (Way Over Your Head). Conspiracy theory groover Hey even gives credence to recent CIA UFO whistleblowing, although the deep philosophising of Is This Love and Life’s A Fucking Miracle are, emotionally speaking, far more cosmic. When Yummy finally confronts the reaper on the wry, fearless Folks, it’s in the style of a bombastic 1950s prom ballad beamed in from a distant galaxy, warps and all. That’s James – reinventing against the dying of the light. ■■■■■■■■□□

Mark Beaumont

Kris Barras Band

Halo Effect EARACHE

Heavy but clever.

Getting harder and heavier with each album, Devon’s Kris Barras Band come flying out of the blocks on this fourth release with a succession of tough riffs and memorable choruses. But what really sets it apart from their previous album, Death Valley Paradise, is the smart production that maintains a clarity of sound, no matter how big the riffs and choruses get. It also gives their musicianship a chance to shine.

Unbreakable may be something of a headbangers’ ball, but the lyrics make clear just why the singer is not about to break, and there’s a whole range of varied techniques packed into the brief but incendiary guitar solo. Likewise the solid riffs and dynamic chorus of Savages, which is about kicking back against the put-downs, leave enough room to work in some clever electronic effects. ■■■■■■■■■■

Hugh Fielder

Noah And The Loners

A Desolate Warning MARSHALL

London teens give the UK punk scene a shot of adrenalin.

London newcomers Noah And The Loners have ticked every single box on the Future Of British Punk checklist. They’re terrifyingly, upsettingly young, looking like they’ve just stepped out of double maths. They’re absolutely furious with the current government, which, given the fact they’re coming of age at a deeply shitty time in British politics, makes their calls on blazing, punchy opener Crash Landing for Parliament to be burned to the ground entirely reasonable. When they’re not calling out the powers that be, they’re stewing in adolescent angst. And they swear with the kind of relish that suggests it’s not long since they’d have been grounded for it, frontman Noah Lonergan spitting out cockney ‘fuck’s with likeable intensity.

With five adrenalin-fuelled tracks clocking in at less than 12 minutes in total, this debut EP is riotous in sound and intent, crackling with energy and riding a wave of nagging, insistent, riffstuffed melodies. The shape of punk to come? It’s probably best not to bet against it. ■■■■■■■□□□

Emma Johnston

Junkyard Drive

Look At Me Now MIGHTY MUSIC Hard-rocking Danes return refreshed. With a radical line-up change – two new guitarists, no less – you might think Junkyard Drive would need a bit of time to regroup and reassess. Not a bit of it. Following up 2022’s Electric Love, Look At Me Now finds Oliver Hartmann and Kristoffer Kristensen on guitars and delivers 10 quality tracks of garage hard rock, a bit punk around the edges, not unlike The Hellacopters but focused on tight riffs and instantly memorable choruses. Black Wolf pushes the envelope a tad with its ethereal verses and explosive chorus, the