In amongst the trademark rock‘n’roll clutter (and it’s a trademark they have ownership over, or a bloody grip of at least, against popular misconception) there seems to be somewhat of a defence going on here. Not defence like having to justify themselves or their actions, that would go against the grain of everything this second album seems to want to stand for, or probably more acutely where they continue and will continue to stand as a band. No, defence as in holding their fort, pulling down the shutters, turning their leather-suited backs to the opposition and the amps all the way up so they can’t hear the world calling their name. Kind of as you’d expect really. You can see it in the brazen album title, hear it in the suspicious lyrics; “we don’t like you, we just want to try you” (‘Stop’), “I’d kill you all but I need you so” (‘Six Barrel Shotgun’), “I’m choosing sides” (‘Generation’) and then another rare disapproving trip outside their own drug-fortified bubble with the now pounding infamy of ‘US Government’. Due to and probably against the wishes of a certain music weekly they’re fighting their corner harder than ever, making it clear they refuse to line up on demand.
So this is direct action – relatively speaking – and when that first intoxicating album had for the main part an ambiguous relationship with both of those words, this was always going to be different. That first album was a dark and rolling amorphous emotion, kicked and elbowed into varying shapes from the inside in each separate instance, so different in character at the very least, if not sound. But this time there isn’t so much of a cross-bled amalgamation of hazy influence. Tracks like ‘Six Barrel Shotgun’ could be say The Moony Suzuki at a stretch, given their generic garagey familiarity. It gets too familiar and generic occasionally, case in point being ‘Going Under’ which could have easily been disposed. Old resurrected crawler ‘Suddenly’ should probably join it and ‘We’re All In Love’, a country garage thing, would be lining up too if there wasn’t such a ballsy pop tune bristling underneath.
It’s avoided one hidden second album trench in being far from overproduced, the obvious danger when a major label smells fortune. It’s practically underproduced in its certain simplicity, fitting then that in Crud’s admittedly unscientific survey it sounds unequivocally better through pathetic shitty speakers than their fat counterparts. Album highlight and raw ‘White Palms’ update ‘Generation’ for instance sounds like a high constrained passion, under these conditions especially. When they do recall the building consummation that made them so absorbing the first time they still shine. ‘Shade of Blue’ builds from a sultry nothing to a bright white light, ‘In Like The Rose’ is like Andy Bell was with Oasis at the very beginning and ‘Heart & Soul’ has tapped into the pure phase of Jason Pierce’s main vein. Ironically the album’s brash directness will probably blow them wider open than ever, shift twice as many albums, balloon the size of the venues. But what you gonna do? Maybe this victory (as eventually, after time, it is) will send them back to their comfort space.