So here we are just a year after the G.A.S.S. project commenced -which saw a crowd-funded three songs a month released to subscribers – and all of which are all collected here for our delectation.
I’ve always loved the music Ginger Wildheart has made, right from his early dabblings with The Quireboys to the first incarnation of The Wildhearts, the solo singles, Supershit 666, Howling Willie Cunt, Clam Abuse, (The brilliant) Silver Ginger 5, the brief flirtation with Brides of Destruction, his time with Mike Monroe, hell even up to the more recent Mutation and Hey! Hello projects. Throughout it all he has always had something to say and with a little more restraint he may well be considered one of England’s very best Rock artists.
Somewhere over the last few years though I started to lose count of all of the new material until this album landed. At just 12 tracks it seemed rather restrained.
For fans there’s nothing really new here – the same hyper speed pop-infused rockers with big melodies and mountainous choruses like on opener ‘Down the Dip’. Shit it’s still catchy as hell, like the restrained glory of ‘Honour’ (with Courtney Love on vocals) or the pop stomp, horns and distortion of ‘EL Mundo (Slow Fatigue)’ it’s all exhaustingly cool and completely compelling.
The issue Ginger has of course is that he’s far too prolific for his own good. You imagine that as soon as this drops another will be around ten minutes later; it makes it all rather hard to focus.
There’s variety here as you might expect, the jangly piano and acoustic intro of ‘The Last Days of Summer’ could well be another band stood alone, but that’s the charm of this troubadour and he keeps on giving. ‘Only Henry Rollins Can Save Us Now’ brings the bite back before the raucous, somewhat mellower acoustic folky jangle of ‘The Pendine Incident’
‘Do You?’ adds a dirty Hanoi-style riff before the melody kicks and holds sway, whilst ‘If You Find Yourself in London Town’ comes over all folky again and takes a jab at the capitol. It’s ‘Toxins & Tea’ though which really ups the trademark Ginger Geordie humour to great effect.
The jams are well and truly kicked out as the album closes: ‘No One Smiled At Me Today’ is pure energy and rides a big bold riff; ‘Ostracide’ similar in intent is even cranked further and ups the distortion: they are a couple of gems.
We close on a seemingly gentler note though, ‘Don’t Lose Your Tail, Girl’ the final track here, rides the release out initially on a softer note before descending into the sort of anarchy we’d been hoping for all along! At nine minutes it’s the sort of Prog-pop-punk ride that only Ginger can get away with. It’s a fitting reminder of the vision of a man who can cover all the bases in the most compelling manner.
This is as good as fans have come to expect and better with each listen, it just goes to underline the real talent that is Ginger Wildheart.
