The Wildhearts are quick out of the traps after Covid restrictions came to an end(Thank God for that!) and live music venues dusted down the stage and threw their shuttered doors open.The new album 21st Century Love Songs has been released and a comprehensive tour is crossing the country.
The Electric Ballroom is steeped in punk n roll history and the band add their potent story to the hallowed halls.The Covid lockdown has had an effect on the national mental health, an issue Ginger speaks of with authority, and the album addresses this in the usual head on style.(You are not your)Diagnosis runs with that theme,showing rock n roll doesn’t have to only celebrate the good times.Remember These Days is an instant classic, turning into an epic medley incorporating Turning American, Schizophonic,Girlfriends Clothes and Splattermania(I’m exhausted even writing out those evocative song titles).
Splitter(one of only two songs from the new record) is an absolute corker, Motorhead drenched in slide, a marriage made in heaven and the self explanatory Let Em Go are thematically linked.A brace from Chutzpah!,The Jackson Whites,a thudding behemoth, contrasts with the lightness of touch on Mazel Tov Cocktail,leaving the epic Caprice to end the set.
Bang!Light the touch paper, worth the price of admission alone, the rifftastic Inglorious is a turbo charged V8 roaring down the straight and is outstanding.Suckerpunch is a knockout blow, before I Wanna Go Where The People Go is a dose of smelling salts.Great to see live music, punters and the Wildhearts combining to give the scene a kickstart.
John Williams
