Gay For Johnny Depp - The Politics Of Cruelty

by Simon T Diplock

A modern punk classic

"While this thing is so violent it could only be arriving in modern times, it's also so gimmick-free it could have been birthed in any of the last three decades."

Now this is what punk rock should sound like. Gay For Johnny Depp’s third release, ‘The Politics Of Cruelty’, has got wit, venom, aggression, melody, authority-baiting abusiveness and even purist-pleasing production; the sort of thing that makes it sound like it was recorded in a cardboard box. But snotty attitude and shoddy sound values alone do not a punk classic make though so ‘…Politics…’ employs a few other neat tricks to get the job done.

For starters, instead of hammering every tone into the ground, the lo-fi nature of this actually brings each deadly spike and every piercing screech to the fore. Which means ‘Cumpassion’ is a cochlea-scraping racket, ‘You Have A Theory…’ sounds like it’s been solely engineered to attack your senses and ‘Noise’, is well, you get the idea. But then, after all that racket, when ‘Lights Out!’ unleashes its sublime indie hook, it comes as one of the best-sounding surprises of the year.

From there the soft, smooth and devilishly grating noises all combine with a fiery haste and fury that won’t just make your bones want to jive but carry you all the way to wherever this band are playing these songs live. You might not be desperate to revisit the aggressive, offensive fuzz on the CD every day but at least GFJD have plumbed something real, something raw. And while this thing is so violent it could only be arriving in modern times, it’s also so gimmick-free it could have been birthed in any of the last three decades.

This is the what Rival Schools would have sounded like if Walter Schreifels had remembered a little more of his past in Gorilla Biscuits, this is what Jello Biafra should be jamming to right now, this is a great big joyous ‘fuck you’ of a record. This is punk rock.

Charlie Ravepants said on October 29th 2007 [report abuse]

Tis a great album. The perfect culmination of what they've been building towards. Their earlier records were good, but sounded at times a little throwaway, a little too much tongue-in-cheek, 'let's see how offensive we can be'. This is where they've properly hit their stride and sound like a real band, whatever that is.

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