As much I liked the rasping, razor-sharp butchness of new single ‘Superchannel’ it still retained the unsavoury odour of a sweaty, 40-year old male thumping around on the dancefloor in a clash t-shirt, a pair of Doctor Martens and a Levi Red-Tab jacket he’d weathered expertly since the mid-eighties. So imagine my surprise when the album follows up this same said elixir-seeking missile with the equally defiant and prevailing pogo through the punk archives that is ‘Without A Fight’. Pitched against the backdrop of last years faintly embarrassing return to the airwaves under the moniker of the Poppy Fields and the chartbusting ‘45RPM’ single this might seem like yet another attempt by Mike Peters to combat the inevitable decline of his years with a shot of adrenalin, a shout-to-the-celing anthem and a 10-day course of vitamins. When placed against the backdrop of his fight against Leukaemia, however, it takes on an altogether different complexion. Few people can rasp like Mike Peters. And few people can fight back more successfully. This might not be clear from the first couple of tracks here, but by the time ‘My Town’ kicks up the dust and comes hurtling down the hairs on the back of our necks like a Harley-Davidson, one thing is certain: The Alarm have certainly arrived.
Coming to its creative fruition around the time of the London bombings of 7/7 and recorded for the most part in Peters’ converted Chapel Studio in North Wales,‘Under Attack’ pursues the concerns Peters has had all his career. This time around though, the emphasis is squarely on prising things open rather than looking for resolution. ‘Raindown’ begins with a crack of six-string thunder and proceeds to coarse through the veins of a large, pelting chorus delivered with characteristic passion by the man from Rhyl himself. And from hereon it just gets noisier.
If you’re tired of Feeder straying from the gameplan, or tired of Bono’s self-gratifying belligerence on the political circuit, you’d be hard-pressed to find a firmer or more fiery substitute. Just don’t go expecting miracles.