Liberty

All I have to say is: HOLY CRAP! The fact that this record was so good was a huge surprise. I really was not expecting to like this as much as I did, but it is a fantastic album. Basically, in terms of style, this band is the English False Prophets. That’s how good The People Who Care Are Angry is. This CD includes that album, and (I think) tacks on a couple of their singles at the end.

The album starts beautifully, with a sort of Flux of Pink Indians-esque monologue, which is actually set to music. Hearing jazzy piano and saxophone on a punk record, especially one as obscure as this, is pleasantly unexpected. The second track once again eschews punk, in favor of a good old-fashioned acoustic protest song. “Revolution Time” is exactly the kind of traditionalist music that their contemporaries would have avoided, which only adds to its impact. The third track, “Bought and Sold” finally starts with distorted guitar, and ends up soundly like a slower, more melodic Conflict. Liberty actually manages to equate eating meat with pornography, which is kind of a hard thing to do. On the song “Determine Your Destiny,” the horns from the first track come back, providing the main hook for the song without sounding like ska-punk. It’s catchy, but goes on a bit too long at about six minutes. It’s kind of ironic that the most “musical” moment is the beautiful group harmony on a song called “Fuck Off You Junkie Bastards.” The main album ends with an instrumental, “Outro to Nowhere."

The singles at the end of the disc are nothing special, with worse production quality and fewer inventive touches than the album.

The CD’s art is typical anarcho-punk with a black and white photo of people in Northern Ireland being intimidated by a cop (British soldier?) with a gun. The booklet includes some interesting pieces written by one of the band members, but because these were just copied from the LP and shrunk, they are almost impossible to read. Lyrics for only about half the songs are included, which actually annoys me more than if they had just left the lyrics out.

Simply put, this is excellent. The variety of the music, the intelligence of the lyrics, and the sheer effort that went into it makes The People Who Care Are Angry a minor classic of the anarcho-punk scene.