We Do Fear You: new Longtooth and Wasterman

I am out. I mean that in the sense that I am writing this whilst in a sitting position. It has been a hard few months of recovery, and thank you to those that send good wishes. My prognosis is good and I should be able to get back into Leicester soon to catch up on the local scene in the hope of finding something good and fresh and original to write about, or at the very least something I can have a reaction to. Pleasant or otherwise. My target is to attend the next "Last Friday" event at LCB, but I need to put on some weight and get these broken limbs working first.

Angry music helps with physio I find. Hip Hop in particular the grinding, malevolent kind with guns and victims helps me battle the pain, but leaves me feeling a little dirty. I like the testosterone rage, but I know there is something cruel and unkind that I should not be celebrating. Today I'm listening to this song "You Should Fear Us" by Longtooth and Wasterman, and I felt I could write something relevant and interesting about it, so here we go readers. I am returning to the review business. Bands, please contact me through Twitter. I may not like what you send me, but I will write a genuine review with neither fear nor favour.

Neither Fear Nor Favour is a good start to this single from Longtooth and Wasterman. I've written about them before, they are probably the most original and fresh act working in Leicester right now, although they seem to have taken their foot from the throat for a little too long. Anyway they are back and with something new and strong.

On one level this is a great compact rock song. The parallel with 9 o'clock Nasty is no surprise, Pete Brock is in fact the man behind the Wasterman alter-ego and that distinctive drawl and heavy guitar chop features strongly here, and that gives the song its dynamism and swagger. It isn't garage rock but there is a flavour of it that adds to the cyberpunk skeleton that struts forward within. On that level is is a complete success. The unthinking meat on the exercise machine, by which I mean myself, can sweat and pump and fight to this music and feel the push of a thousand souls behind them.

But it is not a kind song. It is full of rage. It seeps with all the indignation of people watching the world burn. Instead of expressing powerlessness, it expresses anger and rage and malevolent intent. You could take this as a protest song. You should actually. It might go too far for the mass-media to allow it. Music does still get banned today, but the means and methods are more subtle. I doubt that this song will vanish into the grey though. It's too angry for that.

I ask myself, should I celebrate this music, the violence and anger in it, or should I feel guilt at the way it makes me feel? Should I support a song that threatens violence to the rich?

Yes. I think I should. I am too feeble to build a barricade. I am weak, and I see other people in the care of a health system in decline and I am by no means the weakest and most vulnerable. Someone should be angry about the loss of a world that looks after people like me. Angry about the next generation being left to die so that a percentage point more wealth can be squeezed out of a dying world. 

We should all feel the rage that is in this song.