Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Divisive is as divisive is allowed to do, like the Presidential namesake in which split the United States of America 40 years ago, Liverpool’s The Sneaky Nixons have seemed to have garnered the same ringing endorsement in how to win friends and influence people. What should matter though is the sound that they generate, and for that the two latest singles from the Nixons’ stable are as keenly, and beautifully discordant, as the push will be allowed to be taken.

Baby What You Do and Thick And Thinner are powerful, from that there is no escaping the plain facts, powerful, unrepentant, full of underlying angst and anger, even in the quietest of issues, however this feeling of unrepentant angst is there for a reason. In much the same way that The Sex Pistols garnered underground support against an alienating series of Governments and were, along with The Clash, anti-establishment figures which should have heralded a different way of thinking, so too do The Sneaky Nixons.

Whatever the merits, the double standards of right and wrong that overflow from those that are appalled and those that see the intrinsic value of shock tatics, both singles have personality and a charm attached to them. Whether you like the band or not is not really the debate, it comes down to how society has created the need for such unabashed conflict-ridden music. Music is either safe, enjoyable, so beige that it should a health and safety slip attached to it and would probably sit with more ease on an artist’s pallet as he contemplates painting the view of a field of mud, or it is dynamic and full of rage, even in a really good couple of well written songs.

The only issue is that rage cannot last forever, it is the nature of such things, that eventually the cyclone has to blow its last before the tornado following can take down the other side, such is the point of music; is it better to burn out but be true to the self, or stay beige, disturbed by all around you but never lifting a word in support?

For The Sneaky Nixons and these two concurrently released singles, rage may not last forever, but it sure does leave more of an artistic impression than forever being stuck in the beige.

Ian D. Hall