Carving out an anarchic niche

(Morning Star, Friday 07 March 2008)

ALBUM: Chumbawamba - The Boy Bands Have Won
AS a tonic to the 1980s posturing of such odious self-styled gurus as Bono and Bob Geldof, Chumbawamba's debut album Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records was a big deal indeed.

In the go-for-it 1980s, here was a band who dared to question and make mockery of pious conventions peddled by the mainstream press.

It's unclear, really, when the Chumbawamba's own peculiar brand of anarchy began to be laughable.

Some cite the attack on John Prescott by vocalist and keyboard player Danbert Nobacon at the Brits, others singer and percussionist Alice Nutter's increasingly baffling uber-political stances.

Whatever the matter, it's time to accept these old school hippies back into the fold, as they have rediscovered themselves on this new release.

Replete with 25 tracks, the record certainly endeavours to claw back the band's place in musical history.

It reinvigorates with its creativity, employing five-part harmonies and really bringing a warmth to their traditionally unorthodox approach to the charts.

Bringing together such subject matter as El Fusilado, a man who survived a firing squad execution and Gary Tyler, an innocent man who has spent 30 years as an inmate on death row in the US.

Chumbawamba have been written off before, but the truth is that their brand of multicultural, multi-influenced music has never been more pertinent.

Give it a listen, because the second bands like this stop releasing records, the boy bands really will have won.