Grey Britain – Gallows

Grey Britain Review

Freddie:

Before sharing my review, I feel that it is necessary to reflect on Brexit as both a cultural and historic event. Brexit, for those of you who don’t know, was the successful 2016 referendum for the United Kingdom to sever its ties to the European Union. Led by Prime Minister Theresa May and the Conservative Party, Brexit shocked the world when 51% of British voters agreed that the UK should abandon the EU. Conservative voters who were frustrated by bailouts of Greece, anti-immigrant and Muslim sentiments, and a growing populist movement decided to flip the middle finger to the rest of the world and blow the whole damn thing up. The younger generation of Brits woke up the next day to realize that their country was run by a confederation of vultures, pigs, and snakes who could give a damn about the poor, the sick, and the marginalized. Since the passing of Brexit England has felt the economic blowback of splitting from the EU, and the buffoons of the Conservative Party have failed to materialize an actual exit strategy. Britain, which at one point in history had painted the world red through colonialism, is now a geo-political laughingstock rivaled only by the United States.

This anxiety and post-modernist fury that was felt by the youth after the Brexit movement was also felt seven years earlier, on Gallows’ 2009 magnum opus “Grey Britain.” Gallows, a hardcore punk band from Watford, Hetfordshire, made waves with their 2006 debut album “Orchestra of Wolves ” and quickly became one of the biggest punk bands in England. Their singer and frontman, Frank Carter, was a runaway bulldozer powered by self-loathing and annihilation. His throat-shredding screams and lyrics about hated and destruction were enhanced by the pounding of Lee Barrett’s drums, the cacophony of dissonant guitar riffs from Steph Carter and Laurent Barnard, and the throaty, driving basslines of Stuart Gili-Ross. Hit songs “In the Belly of a Shark,” “Will Someone Shoot That Snake,” and “Orchestra of Wolves” became new punk anthems for disenfranchised British youth.

So when your debut album about self-hated, betrayal, and failed relationships becomes a smash hit, what do you write about next? For Gallows, that was easy; their next album would be an anarchist manifesto tied to a Molotov cocktail and thrown through the window of Parliament. They would take that £1 million dollar record deal from Warner Brothers Music and use it to make a loud, nasty, nihilistic record that would spit in the face of all authority and take no prisoners.

“Grey Britain” is a thirteen track tactical strike, with each song delivering a haymaker punch. The album opens with the operatic “The Riverbank” before launching into moshpit inducing “London Is The Reason.” Gallows follow these openers with a flurry of roundhouse kicks, with “Leeches,” “Black Eyes,” “I Dread the Night,” and “Death Voices” pounding your skull into submission.

Act two of the album opens with the tragically beautiful “The Vulture,” an acoustic ballad that morphs into a hardcore monster mid-way through the track. “The Riverbed,” “The Great Forgiver,” “Graves,” and “Queensbury Rules” continue the sonic assault, with Frank Carter’s hate-filled lyrics raining hellfire down on London.

The album closes with it’s two strongest tracks, “Misery” and “Crucifucks.” The former might be the catchiest punk song about depression and suicidal ideation ever created, and the later is Frank Carter’s requiem for the dying city of London. Carter lambasts pedophile priests, Nazi skinheads, and bloated politicians for their destruction of the United Kingdom and poisoning of the world. But in the end, there is no resolution, no hope. Grey Britain is fucking dead. God damn the Queen.

While Frank Carter may not be the most poetic lyricist, his words are blunt and efficient in their effectiveness. Carter pulls no punches and has no time for flowery metaphors; he is the atheist televangelist warning his punk rock parishioners that the end is really fucking nigh. His self hatred and disgust for British kleptocrats is full throttle on “Grey Britain,” as Carter seems that he is struggling to decide whether to lead a violent revolution against the vultures and pigs, or kill himself to escape the pain and suffering of modern British life.

While the mood of “Grey Britain” is bleak, brutal, and merciless, the album is sonically gorgeous. The guitars sound razor sharp, and the drums are beautifully mixed. Songs are densely layered with string quartets and pianos, further enhancing the operatic nature of the album. In a genre where lo-fi and DIY aesthetics are the standard, “Grey Britain” stands out as the best sounding punk record ever produced.

“Grey Britain” is a landmark album in a rapidly shrinking genre, written about a slowly dying empire. It pushes boundaries and kicks back against authority, challenging every preconceived notion and underwritten rule of hardcore punk. It is of my opinion that “Grey Britain” is the greatest punk album since “The Shape of Punk to Come” by Refused, and should be mandatory listening for anyone who loves hard, fast, aggressive music.

Rating: 10/10

Best tracks: All of them.

Leah:

Gallows’ Grey Britain. Uh. I felt a lot of things while listening to it. Like, why are people so pissed off when my life is so beautiful? I threw the album on on my way upstate, to Albany. Visiting my newborn niece no less. Then, the songs play. Track by track I was growing more and more bored. It started becoming painful to listen to. Grating. It was a sea of distortion and my ears couldn’t really differentiate one track from the last. The singer isn’t anything compelling or artistic, it’s just one-note drivel being beaten over your head. He is only spreading the shitty feelings he is having onto others like me. I want to be happy, shut up. I don’t care what political statements they were making or what place the band was in or who was doing what. He makes anger sound like a book report. Textbook sadness. I like GOOD music. And just throwing records on. And enjoying them. I had to take a break in between to put on “So Mystifying” by the Kinks on repeat to wash my palate off before being physically capable of jumping in again to Grey monotony. The sound was harsh and bland. It dragged so hard, too. I was bored out of my mind, no two ways about it. Easily the most boring record in recent memory. Risk-averse as fuck. I like to listen to albums in full a minimum of two times and I just couldn’t stomach this one; I couldn’t look back. I want to forget I heard it. I want to pretend each track was just “So Mystifying”, all thirteen of them. Peace and love.

Jon: