Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Keep your head down, don’t look into the eyes of the beast that is sizing you up, that is snaring so close by you can feel the remains of the last meal it ate hitting your nostrils as though you were breathing in the sickly smell of carnage and death….do whatever you can to avoid the beast, for if you dare look it in the eye, you know you are next.
The Consequences Coming for you though if you employ this art of avoidance are too numerous to count, and too disastrous to reason, for like the domino that falls because of momentum, if you should falter in your desire to stand firm so the action will continue, so your friends behind you, the ones you call family, and even those you have never met but recognise as fellow souls on a journey, will be betrayed by your actions.
To stand and fight alongside a musician as legendary as Glen Matlock is to feel empowered, and as his brand-new album reveals itself with the passion of a missile strike straight to the underbelly of the establishment and the beast within, so Consequences Coming is the rapid fire of groove designed to give presence of mind to those that stand behind, and to be the fire in the stomach that gives no quarter to those who dare to seek war on the dominos, those who flick the good souls who refuse to budge.
Much has been made of Glen’s former band in recent times, the Sex Pistols being on the end of a serial drama to which Steve Jones was highlighted as part of the revolution of music, but to be fair, across the board, the four original members have offered and delivered a pulse of life that has never diminished, and even though Mr. Matlock’s time was overshadowed by other events, to dismiss his contribution would be a mistake, an intolerable omission. It is to this end that the musician’s time as the master of his own destiny should be seen as inspirational, dynamic, and Consequences Coming is another logical step in brilliance, of rationale, of the bigger bang that never stops beating.
The album is one of groove and pleasure, of the biting sarcasm and no quarter given to the realm of the intolerant and the back biting dramatists to who consequences are but rain drops on those less fortunate; and as tracks such as Magic Carpet Ride, Speaking In Tongues, Something ‘Bout The Weekend, Face In The Crowd, and the enormously tremendous adaption of K.D. Lang’s and Ben Minks’ Constant Craving draw swords in protection and build barricades around those less fortunate, so those consequences are shoved where the sun is unable to shine and rendering the flickers impotent.
A terrific return for one of British music’s absolute kings, one who is justifiably placed to warn the ignorant and the damage inflictors that their time is short, that the Consequences Coming are ones delivered in fire.
Ian D. Hall