Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The rage and fury that dominated the headlines as Punk took on the establishment in the 1970s seemed perhaps, with a few very obvious exceptions of talented genius, to be one more of the best of marketing campaigns to shock and embarrass the nation into feeling the anger of a disaffected youth. One that had been badly let down as the decade wore on but who in turn had been used by those seeking to capitalise upon the market appeal rather than the sound and words of resentment that was being hurled like a four letter word at the faux outraged on television.

Roll on 40 years and the anger of another generation is being heard once more, a generation not let down by outside forces of the time but by their own elected officials, the ones to whom the answers are meant to come clean, honest and with abiding pity for the plight of the young. The anger is raw, the politicians rub their hands together and suggest in no uncertain terms that it is the young who are to blame for not accepting the will of grandeur and not understanding the delicate nature that money rules all. The economy is truly the new God, sloth like, bursting at the seams; and with an appalling smell emanating every time someone in the Government lunatic asylum speaks, it is no wonder the young feel so disenfranchised with it all.

For The Sneaky Nixons, love, life and everything in between is up for grabs for debate and in the bars that hold such outrage and the perfect storm, the words and the music combine sanity in a world that really has the feel at times of being one that no one is ever going to get out of alive. The Coup De Grace of it all is that mercy can be found, the slow response for the passionate call can be ignited and the fury that was so maligned and taken over by fashion a couple of generations back can become a true rallying call. The Coup De Grace can be the start.

The songs that fill the E.P. are fluid, they sing with positive overtones and release Henry V’s Dog’s of war till the hounds have the scent in their flaring nostrils of the battle ahead. These songs are not just a rallying call to the undernourished and undervalued they are the arms that can make a difference.

Tracks such as Let’s Talk About Girls, Thick, Thin & Thinner, Riverside and Baby, Just Do What You Got To Do all spike with energy, they gamble on the true response that lurks in the deflated and the forgotten and even with the subjects being ones that hold different causes, the anger, the passion is there for all to hear and it is a passion that is cool and worthy.

The Coup De Grace, the death of mercy is not yet ready to be signalled but the anger burns brightly, for The Sneaky Nixons this is but the start.  

Ian D. Hall