Ted Leo, who turns 40 this year, was tragically born about ten years too late to be part of the 1970s punk and new wave movement his music encapsulates.
Despite this misfortune of timing he has been doing his best to make up for lost time over his 19-year career, churning out some of the best punk song writing since the glory days of Tom Verlaine, Joey Ramone and Debbie Harry.
On Brutalist Bricks, the sixth album from Leo and his band The Pharmacists and their first on Matador Records, we find him on good form, producing is best album for years, on a par with the excellent Hearts of Oak from 2003 and far better than 2007’s comparatively lacklustre Living With The Living.
The songs are noticeably tighter than that last album as well, offering choppy three-minute punk numbers that have a genuine passion for the subject matter right across the bulk of its 13 tracks.
Anger at the way US politics has morphed in recent years into the economic and foreign policy cock-up it is today is a key theme, particularly on ‘Bottled in Cork’, which finds Leo (pictured, centre) lamenting on his global travels as an American during the Bush era.
The endless documenting of modern life, on blogs and posting photos to Facebook is another theme, covered on ‘One Polaroid A Day’, where his trademark shout takes a rare dip down an octave.
There’s less ska and reggae influences than on previous albums, but the nods to spirit of ’77 punk influences are still there. The opening riff of the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy in the UK’ makes an appearance on ‘Even Heroes Have To Die’. And ‘Where Was My Brain’ is more than a little reminiscent of The Damned’s ‘New Rose’.
Each of the songs, except the acoustic leaning and only poor track on the album ‘Tuberculoids Arrive In Hop’, barely give the listener a chance to draw breath, making The Brutalist Bricks an exhilarating listen and one of the best (extremely post) punk albums around.
8/10
by Joe Lepper, Mar 2010
Related Posts
