Gallows - Grey Britain

When a band tells about its plans to release a concept album, it often makes a lot of teeth gnash, especially when they still have everything to prove. This is yet into this perilous adventure that the English of Gallows launched for their second album.

Gallows are the English punk revival. And that's final. After a well-executed but not exceptional first album released on In At The Deep End (UK) and Epitaph (US) in 2006, the five British have seen themselves being made eyes by majors and it's Warner Bros. that won the auctions with a £1 million deal. As a result here is 'Grey Britain', a second effort in the form of concept album / open letter to their country.
We are from the beginning presented with a fait accompli: "Grey Britain is burning down / We'll be buried alive, before we drown / The queen is dead, so is this ground [...] Set alight to the flag we used to fly / It can't help us now, we are ready... to die". This introduction, certainly not much otimistic, opens the record to perfection. Great Britain is dying and they won't mind to spit on its grave.
The English quintet shows on this second album an ambition and risk-taking not much comparable to their debut. 'Grey Britain' transcends 'Orchestra of wolves', exceeding it in every way. The evolution is outstanding. The band has simply improved itself on every level: vocals, lyrics, instruments. Compositions are much more consistant, the whole is more solid, leading them to experiment orchestrations inclusions, something we would have found difficult to imagine in the days of their first opus, proof of the assurance and confidence acquired by the band. They went far, without necessarily losing themselves.

The five pals from Hertfordshire are, just like the beasts on the cover of their first album, real rabid dogs, their charismatic frontman Frank Carter spitting his sinister lines in your face with a rare fury. ‘Grey Britain’ is a true slap. A cat among the pigeons of the musical world and a cobblestone in the highest window of the Buckingham Palace.
The watchword is simple: "Britain is fucked". No need for translation. The album tackles with virulence Great Britain's eternal but actual different problems, on the social, political and economic level. Messages are clear, unequivocal and with no compromise: their country is in broad decadence, worse, in total decay and they are slightly pissed off about it. Irritated, brutal, the band goes from one murderous accusation to another against those who lead their nation to adrift, the religious sphere and its excesses not being saved ('Leeches'). The record stinks of sweat and blood. Violence and honor. Rats and misery. Street gangs and churches in flames. «Everything is falling apart».
The band show a mad savagery while keeping this inimitable English class. The "so British" accent is delicious, yet drown into the vociferations of an impressive Frank Carter. The young mad dog he was three years ago became one hell of a mouth, a loudmouth. His voice enormously evolved, even rougher and more hoarse than before. He hollers constantly, even on the short spoken parts (except for the first part of 'Vultures (Act I & II)'), he spits his words like he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, with incredible conviction and determination. The young tattooist sings with his innards, on the verge of the rale, which fits perfectly with his writing which also matured much. Visceral, dark, dangerous, it paints a picture of modern Great Britain made of grey and nothing else, giving it an almost medieval image. The band filmed a 30-minute fiction to illustrate the album and we can only approve of the idea as Carter's writing is so explicit, almost cinematic. It gives a fire-and-brimestone feeling to the whole record, increased by the different samples of diverse sounds (crows, bells, waves, train, alarm) as well as the intro and the conclusion in the form of movie original soundtrack.

Dramatic, sinister, filthy but incredibly successful. The general gloom, that we also find instrumentally in the bass lines, heavy and dark, of Stuart Gili-Ross ('I dread the night'), choke the record though. 'Vultures (Act I & II)' sees the band taking a new path on its first half, on which Frank Carter's hoarse voice giving way to a surprisingly soft and in tune singing perfectly suited to the acoustic guitar accompanying it. Rage, however, isn't far, the second half of the track gives pride of place to the four others' powerful instrumentations. Guitars howl and drums are precise, cymbals fly, smacked by Lee Barratt's ardour. We must not as well trust the almost cheerful voice/drums intro's melody of 'Black eyes', this song being one of the heaviest of the record. Stephen Carter and Laurent Barnard's riffs are insane, we would swear hearing Have Heart on 'The riverbed'. And as listening to the lyrics, similarities don't end here: "We are the brothers, in my brothers I trust". The quintet is indeed more hardcore than ever, perfectly mastering intense gang vocals ('London is the reason') and tearing breakdowns (the huge 'Misery'). And if this 'Grey Britain', far from being an 'Orchestra of wolves' 2, strive for a frontiers-exceeding hardcore, some songs show the more basement punk side of their early days, as 'Leeches' and 'The great forgiver'. This album is just the perfect fusion between punk and hardcore, at the same time terribly heavy and terrifically energetic.
And how can we not talk about the last track, 'Crucifucks', genuine apocalypse hymn closing this scathing attack record in an total terror. By the use of many animal metaphors, Carter goes over the executioners of the prestigious London finishing off the martyred populations ("The snakes get fat while the good rats die [...] It's time for us to take a stand / We are dying on our knees in this grey broken land") before finally admitting, panting, everyone's responsability in the disaster over a military drums background: "There ain't no glory and there ain't no hope / We will hang ourselves, just show us the rope / There ain't no scapegoats left to blame / We brought this on ourselves and we could have been the change / Great Britain is fucking dead / So cut our throats, end our lives, lets fucking start again". Then follow several entirely instrumental minutes, letting us admire the ship sinking, still all rattled by what we just heard. If the xylophone may seem inappropriate, the piano and the violins are breath-taking and wonderfully crystallize the final desolation. An epic conclusion worthy of this name.

Gallows was only a simple punk-hardcore band among so many others beforehand, but with 'Grey Britain’ they rise to the rank of movement's new first in line, accomplishing what some have been trying to do for ten years. The jump to major was not a mistake, quite the contrary. According to Frank Carter, it's rather his band itself that is "the musical industry's biggest mistake". Him who was claiming not a long ago that Gallows was not his life, him, the tatto artist. "Gallows won't last five years", he said. Well, we will see soon enough, but in the meantime, he will definitely devote his next months to it, as tours will doubtlessly go on all around the globe.
England can be proud of its five nasty brats, from now on more "nasty" than "brats". The wonderful spite and application Gallows show only gives their country its letters patent of nobility. On a purely punk plan, of course.

5/5

Recommanded if you like:
Black Flag, Cancer Bats, The Bronx
Check also:
The Ghost Of A Thousand, Blackhole, Dead Swans

www.myspace.com/gallows
(Reprise Records, 2009)