As an avid collector of all genres of music, I find myself constantly trying to shock and impress myself with something new, something that will make me take notice of what’s going on in the world. As opposed to tapping my foot and smiling along with the same ol’ rhythm that all is well and good, as long as there is a nice bass line and some clever sampling.

When I first started to notice the power of music as a child, I listened to the likes of Public Enemy, whose album Fear of a Black Planet got banned from the school disco after my friends and I tried to get the DJ to blast a few numbers. I distinctly remember writing “N.W.A” in chalk on the black board at primary school, I can’t have been more than nine or ten. My teacher Mr. Kearns asked me what it stood for. When I told him, he assumed I was being a horrible racist and made me eat my lunch alone in the corridor. Through my guilt and fear I was really thinking Wow, I’m on to something here. “If you fuck with me, I’ll put my foot up yo ass!”

Later at secondary school the beats were replaced by Nirvana, and unfortunately I have to admit, Rage Against the Machine. Again, they did little but fuel my hatred for authority and society in general, without having to rebel or do anything controversial myself.

Since then, all I have had to get my kicks from is gurning electro, raw indie and the suppressed smokey haze of dub reggae. There has been a fist sized hole in my CD rack that hasn’t been filled for way over a decade. Sure, I listen to some dark offerings from bands like Nick Cave, Tricky, Arab Strap etc, and I love them, but they simply do not convey the aggressive, violent angst that one needs to get through several years of living, working and commuting in a city like London.

Cue Gallows. Oh, Gallows, where have you been when I needed you, on my battered old MP3 on a packed rush hour tube train full of knobs in suits and drunken loud mouths with McDonalds meals? I discovered them after reading a review of their new album Grey Britain, and I thought “yeah, I’ll have some of that, I need it like a hole in someone else’s head”. For someone who has always stubbornly shunned anything and everything in the metal section at HMV, this is a real adventure into the unknown for me. Those who know me well may even call this out of character, a mid-life crisis, or a cry for help. I say to those people, get some hardcore London punk in your collection, NOW!

How often do you discover a whole new sound that makes you want to go out, get covered in tattoos, burn churches, drown horses, rape the queen and this pleasant land, and then kill yourselves, with a grin and a wink. All accompanied with soaring string orchestras and weighty riffs. My original fear was that I may turn into a grifty, grow a pony tail and start to compose a wardrobe of black, near black and olde black. These guys however, have well maintained short hair, immaculate, well fitted suits, and trilby hats, as well as several enormous tattoos (I heard that vocalist Frank Carter is a tattoo artist himself). Imagine Pete Doherty being kidnapped, covered in art, force-fed steroids and then starved for several days before being released in a butchers shop, this is the image they convey.

I no longer worry about my new found infatuation with the London hardcore scene, I’m far too busy worrying about what everyone else must be going through in their mundane existence of U2 and REM albums, sweet rosé wine and comfy slacks. In these current financial crises we are all engulfed in, what better reassurance could you wish for than “The Union Jack has bled away, it’s black and white, and it is fucking grey.” or “We are the rats, and we run this town. We are the black plague bearing down. We have no fear and we have no pity, we hate you and we hate this city. London is the reason, when it burns down we’ll be tried for treason.” Amen genius. http://www.myspace.com/gallows
HJ