Page 41 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

THE

WILDHEARTS

he Wildhearts’ comeback album hadn’t burned this brightly since the mid-90s.
is not just impossibly good, They clearly felt it too. The theme-setting title
by rights it should have been track may be the third in sequence on this album,
impossible. In reviving a sound but there’s no doubt it sums up the mood in the
T that they first nailed nearly 30 band. ‘You can’t keep a good band down,’ they sing on
years ago, Ginger, CJ, Ritch and Danny managed Renaissance Men the title track. ‘We’re gonna make you sing if anyone
to defy nature’s laws, and certainly musical can, we’ll rock you like a boomerang.’
ones. The old rules of rock’n’roll – or at least GRAPHITE As that suggests, crucially, the mixture of
the vital, punk-infused variety The Wildhearts pithy humour and prickly lyrics we always loved
traded in – dictated that middle-aged men them for is really fizzing on this album, matched
couldn’t continue to make young persons’ by some breathless playing. The overwhelming
music without making embarrassing arses of energy assault of My Kinda Movie – particularly
themselves, and if they had any dignity they in Ritch’s relentlessly intense drumming and
should shuffle off into MOR irrelevance. a superb twanging guitar riff – offsets a lyric full
Gaps between albums of a decade don’t usually of great lines: ‘If this was on video I’d get my money
help, and nor, in theory, does rehiring your old back/Pirate this on VHS and spend the rest on crack,’
bass player despite the fact that he’s recently had Ginger sneers, in another telling reference to the
a leg amputated. Sentiment is all very well and history of this star-crossed foot-shooter of a band.
admirable, but it rarely makes for the kind of For the most part, though, it’s an unflinchingly
fired-up, splenetic, wasp-up-your-trouser-leg rock heartfelt set of songs, with not a single word
racket The Wildhearts are known for. And at their minced or muted. The musings on racism and
age they should know better. But as rock’n’roll homophobia firing My Side Of The Bed might be
itself becomes an art form old enough to claim older and wiser, but it’s full of uncompromising
its free bus pass, there are an increasing number lines such as ‘Don’t take the easy thoroughfare, you
of artists bucking the old trends and raging as know that it’s full of cunts down there.’ Meanwhile, the
hard as ever against the dying of the light. Indeed Pistols-y thunder of Diagnosis is a thrillingly life-
there’s a very seductive theory that the people The life-affirming qualities of this record must affirming riposte to the dose-now-ask-questions-
who manage to stay relevant into their dotage have something to do with restoring a line-up later approach to mental health Ginger targets
– your Dylans, Youngs, Wellers even – tend to that imbued this band with more confidence in the lyrics. One of the strongest songs of all is
be the curmudgeonly old fuckers who seem to and vitality than they’ve shown on record for the CJ-written Little Flower, a robustly romantic
still have some eternal itch to scratch. Ginger years. We can’t really call it a comeback, given singalong that could have graced any hard rock
Wildheart could fit into that mould pretty snugly, the amount of temporary re-formations and album of the past 40 years.
even if he’d doubtless rankle at any attempt to one-off gigs The Wildhearts have gone through, All of which made this a runaway winner of
rope him into a gang. but the reconvening of the nearest this band gets Clasic Rock’s 2019 Album Of The Year Poll. Vive
But there’s definitely something more than to a classic line-up – Ginger, CJ, Danny and Ritch la renaissance! JS
just one man’s demons firing up Renaissance Men. – seemed to rekindle a spark in the studio which Killer track: The Renaissance Men

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