CHUMBAWAMBA

Line-up: This is going to be one of those chaotic kudzu paragraphs, courtesy of Chumbawamba always having had a bit of a collective feel to it and various members moving from 'unofficial' to 'official' members and back depending on the era. To summarise to some degree, then: the original 1982 starting line-up consisted of Allan "Boff" Whalley (vocals, guitar), Danbert Nobacon (vocals), Lou Watts (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and "Midge" (drums), and shortly expanded with Alice Nutter (vocals, trumpet), Dunstan Bruce (vocals, bass, percussion, turntables), Harry Hamer (originally guitar and vocals) and Mavis Dillon (bass, vocals, horns). Midge left in 1985 and Hamer picked up the drums. In 1992 Paul Greco joins on bass while Dillon moves to the horn section until he leaves in the mid-1990s; when Greco too leaves in the late 1990s, the bass duties are picked up by Neil Ferguson, who's been doing engineering, production and additional studio instrumentation for the band since 1982 but finally gets promoted to full membership status. The 90s line-up is completed in 1996 when Jude Abbott joins (vocals, horns). In 2004 Nobacon, Nutter, Hamer and Bruce leave as the band turns into a quartet and moves to its final folk era, later further augmented by Phil Moody (keyboards, vocals). Got all that? This isn't even everyone who's contributed to the albums on a regular basis and all I'm going to say is that the table of line-up chronology in Wikipedia is a godsend if you want to have an understanding of who's been in and out.

Over my years in internet music spaces, it has been nice to see that Chumbawamba's reputation has grown from "the one hit wonder band from the 90s with the drinking song", to "the one hit wonder band from the 90s with the drinking song, but also with a fascinating and vastly branching 30-year career in which that one hit is just a random blip." It's now common knowledge that there is so much more to the story of Chumbawamba than their mainstream reputation would assume... but I still see very few people actually go in and listen to any of the rest; nor is their influence rarely touched upon by music critics at large. For the wider world at large their three-decade-long history is still a matter of neat trivia, rather than a treasure vault waiting to be opened. What a shame that is - there are few artists whose career is as fascinating as the Chumbas'.

Chumbawamba are frequently described as anarchist punks, and that's true - but it's also an oversimplification, and was so even back in 1982 when the band were formed by members of a bunch of other punk bands coming together under a new project. They were punk in the purest musical sense too, of course, but they were also always way more than just that. Few punk bands after all feature a keyboard player (among 6-7 other members) on their very first scrappy demo EP, and the rhythm section in particular were always a lot more post-punk with the groove-heavy drums and swanky bass that was as melodic and funky as it was muscular and primal. The band's early EPs and singles already demonstrated their high ambitions: where the unifying concept was as important as the music, and where the sharp and acerbic messages were best served with hooks made out of pure pop. They were just as full of grit and Thatcher-era anger as any of their peers, but even listening to the prehistoric demos and singles it's clear that they were always going to grow into something beyond the confinements of the scene they were in.

And grow they did. Chumbawamba's history is full of sudden swerves and stylistic swings which form a melting pot of radical experimentation. By their 1986 debut album they had already almost fully moved out of the punk scene musically and headed into a genre-blending territory where any sound could be punk in their hands. In the early 1990s they discovered samplers and dance music, and the deft groove under their songs found a new form to flourish with. In the late 1990s the band signed up with EMI (who they had been busy slagging off all across their independent days) and embraced their pop side, intentionally creating some of their overtly catchiest music but using it as a vehicle to criticise the very system they were now taking advantage of (in more ways than one - the "Tubthumping" royalties funded many anti-capitalist movements). Once they parted ways with EMI they set up their own label and began to explore interpretations of folk music until finally they simply went full-on folk - because, to paraphrase Todd in the Shadows, they were punks who got old and that's just what happens. That already is a huge stylistic range to cover but it barely even begins to scratch what happens within the albums themselves, where stylistic tributes, genre experiments and blends of everything they've learned to date come to life under whatever production aesthetic the band have called home that given day. Chumbawamba were always shifting and moving, and that results in a very curious thing: it's difficult to summarise what exactly Chumbawamba sound like, but they never sound anything but Chumbawamba, imprinting their very distinct personality (personalities to be even more accurate, courtesy of their multiple co-lead vocalists) into everything they do. You always know what the Chumbawamba sound is like, even if it is difficult to describe and impossible to define.

The one consistent thing across their varied discography is their continued commitment to concept albums, and that's one of the most fun aspects of the band. The majority of their albums have an overarching theme or a particular center of inspiration, and more often than not it's evident that the theme came first and the songs afterwards. They're rarely subtle about it either - Chumbawamba albums typically come with extensive liner notes which not only lay down the lyrics (often political, always commenting) but also lay down the inspiration for the album and sometimes even break down each song's specific point or message. It means that it's easy to gather the background and understand the politics, even if you're separated from the original context - something that was extremely useful when a young Finn found himself attracted to the band's music with zero clue about British (or global!) politics. The downside of this approach is that it's sometimes very evident that the message came before the song and you can find plenty of examples of somewhat weaker material propped up only because it fit the theme, but I personally think that's a trade-off I can live with - each Chumba album is its own deep world to investigate and research, and it's an aspect I've particularly come to appreciate with age. I got into Chumbawamba when I was a teen purely because I thought the songs were great and the vocals were captivating, and though it was easy to figure out how political the music was it was also easy for me to more or less not pay attention to it. Now that I'm older and I have lived in the UK for a long while, it's a different kind of fascinating to dip into the essays and lyric sheet and effectively see history unfold (and remain the same in parts...). So much of it is also specifically queer history, given the band's vocal defense of LGBT+ rights right from the very beginning (their very second single was against the anti-homosexual law that Thatcher had introduced), and that is powerful in its own way for someone under the rainbow umbrella - honestly, again referencing how no one seems to bother looking into the band's music any further, the "be gay do crimes" contingent would absolutely love these guys if anyone gave them a second pass.

But as said, admittedly none of that was ever a reason why Chumbawamba were one of the earliest bands I became a fan of once I had started taking the first steps into full-blown music nerdiness - it was, simply as it is, the power of the music itself. The thing that many artists who focus so heavily on being a spokesperson for important matters often forget is that the easiest way to get the message through is to make it stick in someone's head - and you could never, ever call Chumbawamba unmemorable. There's the infectious vocal melodies (be it Nobacon and Dunst's spitfire pseudo-raps and sprachesange, the others' more softer and welcoming tones or the occasional impassioned shouting), the tight-as-hell rhythm sections and the aggressively catchy riffs, usually all coming at you at the same time, all on top of sharp and precise songwriting - underneath all the big hullabaloo about their non-musical accolades and traits, it's rarely discussed just how wonderfully good musicians and songwriters they are. Most evident in their slower songs and the subtler material that would crop up in the autumn years, but even those big loud rock songs and punk kick-alongs have an immediate pull because of how the songwriting wraps you up around its little finger. That is Chumbawamba's secret deadly weapon: that behind all the bravado and borderline over-the-top confrontational antics, there are some real melodic masterminds that make a powerful musical act.

There aren't many discographies quite like Chumbawamba's. There's a lot of unevenness at places, for sure - but on the flipside you have one of the most unique, ever-shifting and personality-rich discographies around that's a riot to have explored, never knowing exactly what's about to happen around the corner and frequently having any preconceived notions and ideas challenged. And there is, at the minimum, a lot more to it than "Tubthumping".

Discography gaps: The original 1988 version of English Rebel Songs, the Revenger's Tragedy OST, the live albums, a couple of the CD singles. I'm also not touching on the old pre-1986 demo albums and EPs etc.

Main Chronology:

• 1986: Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records
• 1987: Never Mind the Ballots
• 1990: Slap!
• 1992: Shhh
• 1994: Anarchy
• 1995: Swingin' With Raymond
• 1997: Tubthumper
• 2000: WYSIWYG
• 2002: Readymades
• 2003: English Rebel Songs 1381-1984
• 2004: Un
• 2006: A Singsong and a Scrap
• 2008: The Boy Bands Have Won
• 2010: ABCDEFG

CD Singles:

• 1992: I Never Gave Up
• 1992: Behave
• 1993: Enough Is Enough
• 1993: Timebomb
• 1994: Homophobia
• 1995: Ugh! Your Ugly Houses!
• 1997: Tubthumping
• 1998: Amnesia
• 1998: Top of the World (Olé, Olé, Olé)
• 2000: She's Got All the Friends
• 2004: On eBay
• 2005: Fade Away (I Don't Want To)
• 2013: In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher EP

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Main Chronology

PICTURES OF STARVING CHILDREN SELL RECORDS

1) How to Get Your Band on Television; 2) British Colonialism & the BBC; 3) Commercial Break; 4) Unilever; 5) More Whitewashing; 6) An Interlude: Beginning to Take It Back; 7) Dutiful Servants & Political Masters; 8) Coca-Colanisation; 9) ...and in a Nutshell; 10) Invasion

A half hour manifesto on Western colonisation, light on stand-out songs but intended as one solid statement - and it works as one.

By 1986 Chumbawamba had been busy and active for a good few years, with a combination of singles, EPs, compilation contributions and demo albums bearing their name already out in the world. Thus the band arrive at their de facto debut album with a fairly formed idea of what it is they want to do and how to go about it. What inspired them to finally take a full-length approach was the mid-80s trend of Western artists forking out charity efforts for third world countries, culminating in 1985's Live Aid - in Chumbawamba's eyes, a self-promotional attempt of the Western world to wash their hands clean from the mess they had caused in those countries to begin with by way of feel-good "activism" rather than systematic repairs of messes they caused (which is a fair and accurate point, and not that much has changed in the fourty years since...). Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records is, well, all about that: a conceptual cut-through and a critical stab at the topic that starts from Live Aid and moves to examine the wider topic at hand afterwards, taking shots at big corporations and contemporary politicians as they go. With a hefty topic like this, it's no wonder they felt that they couldn't contain everything they had to say on the subject within just one single or an EP.

"How to Get Your Band on Television" is not just the album's opening track but its summarised thesis, an eight and a half minute multi-suite overture of sorts that pulls the album together: it lays out the roots for the rest of the album both musically and lyrically, advancing from a horn-accentuated slow build of an intro that sets the scene like a faithful narrator to the cheekily jubilant post-punk groove that kicks off the song proper. It's ambitious, dynamic, both aggressively sharp-barbed and endlessly entertaining at the same time - and also so very Chumbawamba. "How to Get Your Band on Television" not only starts off the Chumbawamba album discography but it lays the groundwork for the first two decades of the band's career. It's also, most importantly, a great song: one fine enough to hold the weight of in practice being the album's mouthpiece. By the time Nobacon's vocals get downright fervorous with spit and spite about crucifying Cliff Richard it's become practically exhalarating, and so it's the job of the somber outro to reframe the song to remind of the gravitas of the message; every step along the way, the band pull the listener in through a combination of infectious energy and impish hooks (the "ch-ch-charity" singalongs deserve a shoutout especially). You get the feeling that this song is basically the reason that the album exists to begin with and it packs a heck of a punch to begin things with - a real tour de force album 1 track 1.

The rest of Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records comes across a little bit like supplemental material to the main manifesto of its opener. Thematically each one picks a particular angle to view the central themes through, while the songs are shorter, more prone to stylistic exercises and frequently eschewing musical weight altogether in favour of the message in the more interlude-esque moments ("Commercial Break", "... And in a Nutshell"). Even the actual song titled "An Interlude" refers to its role as an aside from the central narrative (using Nicaragua as an example of the third world fighting back), while musically its jaunty sing-song folk is one of the more accomplished and fleshed-out compositions here. Many of the songs are composed of bits and pieces that are spliced together more or less haphazardly, avoiding conventional structures but in a way where it feels like it's simply because the band didn't think there was a point in giving every idea that came to their heads its own separate title - nothing ties together the hectic disco beat of the first half of "Unilever" with the atmospheric and keyboard-swept second half apart from the lyrical theme, and other bands would likely have explored each of these musical ideas further rather than leaving them as they are and welding them together. "Dutiful Servants & Political Masters" and "Coca-Colanisation" in particular both consist of short minute-ish musical segments (a sales pitch on top of a bouncy little organ abruptly shifting into the album's angriest out-and-out punk breakdown on the former, moving to a jaunty horn-accentuated instrumental and an extended vocal sample of a Coke advert in the latter) and because the two tracks segue together, you're left with the impression that the division into two songs in the tracklist is more for aesthetic reasons than for treating these pieces as individual works. The overall sentiment is that this all intended to be listened to as one complementary suite rather than songs that necessarily stand out on their own two feet; a sentiment underlined by the lyrical callbacks as well, with multiple songs starting with "I am the boss of the BBC/wife of the boss of the company/etc" kind of introductionary line as an example.

That isn't to say that there aren't any other song-songs here or that tracks wouldn't jump out. "More Whitewashing" in particular is a genuine stand-out constructed around a repetition of anticipation-building verses and the jubilantly jagged choruses that are almost anthemic in their delivery, until the snare-rolling outro (which here sounds like a logical escalation rather than another sudden swerve) takes over; the early EP cut "Invasion" is also re-worked to serve as the narrative's grand conclusion and as such forms an appropriately grand stand-off of furious ranting and cascading guitars, its open frustration a fitting mirror to the opener's cheeky giddiness now that the last half an hour spent with these issues has left the blood boiling. They're the exception to the rule though, freak coincidences rather than anything necessarily intended to live outside this particular context. But it's all about the context, really: Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records was intended as a response to something very specific, rather than to be an album in the more traditional sense of separately conceived songs brought together under unified design. And that's fine, because Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records hangs tightly as a singular 30-minute presentation which has been cut into chapters as an afterthought, like a DVD scene selection highlighting key scene changes - it's an engaging piece of work in its entirety, keen to make a point while also featuring a musical adventurousness and a knack for unexpected hooks that keeps it flowing smoothly. The lack of a more focused songwriting approach does mean it gets overshadowed by many of its peers in the same discography, but it's a genuinely interesting record in itself; best maybe described as a statement of intent, rather than a conventional album.

Physically: I own this as part of a reissue called First 2, which combines the first two albums into a single disc. The liner notes include an introductionary note from the band, the lyrics for the album and a set of notes scattered across the lyrics to elaborate on the topics and points presented. As with many Chumbawamba albums the liner notes really help to build the wider picture, and as such as are invaluable even though the presentation here is quite minimalistic. But I'm glad we have the reissue in the first place.

[Reviewed: 14/09/2025]

NEVER MIND THE BALLOTS

1) Always Tell the Voter What the Voter Wants to Hear; 2) Come on Baby (Let's Do the Revolution); 3) The Wasteland; 4) Today's Sermon; 5) Ah-Men; 6) Mr Heseltine Meets His Public; 7) The Candidates Find Common Ground; 8) ...Here's the Rest of Your Life

A quickly put-together follow-up from a band already keen to move on from what they were following up from.

Never Mind the Ballots arrives a scant year after the debut album, having been written, recorded and released in a rush in order to coincide with the 1987 general election in the UK. The hot topic this time is, naturally, the state of the UK politics and particularly its politicians: as far as the Chumbas are concerned, all the parties have become just as bad and - crucially - hypocritical as one another, and so despite the Thatcherite era this finds its release in the band are aiming their shots at all sides. There isn't a slant here that's more nuanced than pointing fingers at spineless and corrupt politicians regardless of alignment - and to be honest, they likely didn't even have the time to look at things more deeply than that. Unfortunately, it is its rushed nature that has come to define the album.

The main point of critique I had about Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records was that it was a concept-first, music-later kind of affair and you could tell which parts of the tracklist were clearly there to fill the thematic gaps and which were composed as songs first and foremost. The irony is that Never Mind the Ballots is sort of the opposite, and it ends up being the weaker album overall. The concept isn't quite as tight this time around, with "Always Tell the Voter What the Voter Wants to Hear" more or less driving in the point in the first three minutes of the album and the rest of the record is slightly at loss as to where to go from there; best exemplified by the middle section of "Today's Sermon" / "Ah-Men" which ponders the compromising machinations around the suffragette movement with a side of incongruent religion, which is a slight out of time and place with the rest of the album. On the flipside, apart from the interlude "Today's Sermon" all the other seven songs stand wholly as individual compositions and even the shortest ("Come on Baby" at 1:39) sounds like a fully-fledged track rather than a snippet stuck on the side of another snippet. But the band simultaneously sound like they've stretched themselves too thin: case in point, after "Wasteland" there's two other songs which feature its main motif but it comes a touch too close to just recycling a musical passage in lack of other material. The clearest example is the over 13-minute "...Here's the Rest of Your Life" has no genuine reason to be that long once its climactic and heartfelt "I hate..." litany (the moment where the chaotic joker facade drops and the genuine shock and disgust at the state of things take centre stage) has finished and there's this half a song's worth of the same brief and not particularly interesting musical loop being endlessly repeated. Usually these long, album-closing jam-esque grand finales make a big point about why they're locked onto a particular groove, but in this case it really does just feel like padding all the way down where no one's particularly excited about actually staying in the groove.

There's an argument that this should've been an EP instead of being forced to go full-length (not a format the band were unfamiliar with, after all) and what a solid EP it would have actually made. "Always Tell the Voter..." is Chumbawamba to a T: manic, exciting, piercing but also fun, not to mention infuriatingly catchy (guess which song's been playing in my head throughout this review re-listen cycle). "Come on Baby" is a short and snappy explosion with a quiet-loud dynamic where the quiet bits wind up all the tension and the loud parts unleash it in a flurry of horn stabs, chaotic guitars and hectic drums. "Mr Heseltine Meets His Public" is the most outwardly melodic track of the lot, and it's the gentler parts amidst the post-punk thrust in particular which strike as some of the album's more captivating parts; "The Candidates Find Common Ground" follows it right up with a final executive summary of points raised, coming to a triumphant conclusion with those already-signature trumpets of the band uplifting the song. A solid four-song outing without padding ("Here's the Rest of Your Life", "Today's Sermon"), without half-hearted punk throwbacks ("Ah-Men", though the machine gun rhythm vocals are great), and without "The Wasteland" which somehow sounds both overwrought and underbaked at the same time despite being arguably the most ambitious song of the lot; all tracks that are fine, really, but also demonstrate in different ways that the band struggled to pull together a cohesive piece of work.

In the liner notes to the First 2 reissue the band notes that by this point their "love affair with fast loud music was almost at an end", and that statement cuts right into the dilemma of Never Mind the Ballots. Chumbawamba had already abandoned all notion of being a strictly punk band and they were already testing the limits of where post-punk could get up to, but they had a cause they felt committed to respond to and a record to make. Rather than a grand last hoorah for the first era of the band, Never Mind the Ballots is the proof in the pudding that it was time to take those exploratory notions further and commit to something completely new. It's the album of theirs that is most likely to fall through the cracks completely for even the seasoned fan, as even if you disagree more firmly with some of the later albums they are at least more, well, memorable. Never Mind the Ballots is an easy listen if you enjoy the band's antics in the slightest and that's its key redeeming feature, but it has the least to say for itself out of anything in the band's back catalogue both stylistically and in stand-out material. Physically: Like with the debut, I own this as part of First 2. Even the liner notes, presumably carried over from the original release, are indicative that there was just less time to pull things together - only the lyrics and a brief introductionary message to highlight the subject matter and provide some insight not apparent in the lyrics themselves, with no added commentary for the actual songs this time around.

[Reviewed: 23/09/2025]

SLAP!

1) Ulrike; 2) Tiananmen Square; 3) Cartrouble; 4) Chase PC's Flee Attack by Own Dog; 5) Rubens Has Been Shot!; 6) Rappoport's Testament: I Never Gave Up; 7) Slap!; 8) That's How Grateful We Are; 9) Meinhof

Punk is out, dance grooves and samplers are in. As is a more celebratory, rather than aggressive, tone. It's a creative reinvention.

Let's rewind back to the previous review: remember how in the liner notes for the reissue of the first two albums the band quipped about starting to get tired of playing loud rock music by the end of their initial phase? What then followed was relatively long period (in early Chumbawamba standards) of figuring out what to do instead. 1988 saw the release of the original version of English Rebel Songs, a largely a cappella album of old protest songs and folk standards which was always more of a whim idea than an earnest indication of a new path (not reviewed here, I'll talk about the re-recorded version instead later on) - but it hinted at the band looking beyond their lackadaisy band setup when in search of a new sound. What ultimately sparked the next shift was the same phenomenon that enchanted so many other British rock bands at the same time: the second summer of love of the turn-of-the-90s rave scene. The tight groove of a strong rhythm section had always been one of the defining factors of Chumbawamba's sound anyway, their pop-flirting melodies found an equally suitable home in a slicker context like this, and samplers opened entirely new avenues for expression for the group as they could cheekily repurpose other people's recordings for their own subversive means.

So there's a new sound in tow. Slap! isn't dance music per se but it is playing with the genre's toy box. Besides the general emphasis on hooky (even hookier, even) basslines, sharp drum swings and a liberal use of sampling, as well as the occasional period element á la the ever-familiarly plinking house piano in "Tiananmen Square", the song structures are often like vintage extended dance mixes. There's just as much space given for the funky rhythms stretch out across long instrumental sections as is given to the words - and in a few cases those words a little more than a handful of short stanzas appearing amidst busy musical sections. Because this is Chumbawamba there is a healthy amount of stylistic variation involved, though the same sense of delirious fun permeates through even the more aggressive "That's How Grateful We Are" (closest to the first two albums out of anything here, including being one of the few male-lead songs of the record) courtesy of its cheeky children's singalong parts and the thickly laid out drum loop; "Cartrouble" meanwhile is a fever dream concoction of James Bond guitars, playfully twee melodic rolls, vintage rock and roll references and doo wop backing vocals, coming together as a collage of a pop song that sounds a lot spikier than if it would've been arranged more conventionally. In a way it resembles a more refined take on some of the wilder interstitials of the debut, in particular, and highlights just how excited the band are about exploring the wonderful world of sampling (put a pin on that for the future...). Only the dramatically atmospheric tension of "Rubens Has Been Shot!" conveys itself with a notably different energy, but at halfway point of the album it's a good breather before the big movements of the second half.

Equally important to the sound of the New Chumbawamba is the new lyrical tone. Slap! isn't a concept album in the vein of the first two records, but it is the album where Chumbawamba find their voice. Being confrontational about the current events is just one side of the band - the other is finding moments of glory across history and raising a toast to them so they could be remembered by others as well, and Slap! is where that tradition begins. No doubt inspired by digging out all the old folk songs for English Rebel Songs, the running theme across Slap! is highlighting occasions where the powers that be got their comeuppance by less powerful sources. Some of these touch significant moments recognisable from history classes like the civilians' vengeance against the soldiers following the Tiananmen Square massacre in the song of the same name, human spirit vs the horrors of Holocaust ("Rappoport's Testament", admittedly based on a novel), the toppling of Stalin's statue ("That's How Grateful We Are"); others are more fleeting footnotes of history you might not be familiar with at all, such as the recounting of one British MP becoming angered enough by the words of another to slap some sense into them ("Slap!", naturally) or the farcical tale of the unluckiest police chase ever ("Chase PC's Flee Attack by Own Dog"). Chumbawamba are no longer just a band who want to take on the world, they now want to also toast those who came before them and inspired them, and In contrast to the seething anger of the first two albums Slap! carries a sense of triumph and celebration. That is the most notable change the Chumbas go through on this album, and one which has arguably just as much impact as the new musical approach.

Slap! doesn't sound like "classic"/signature Chumbawamba per se, but it's the first time that everything is starting to come together in that manner. It is subversive, fun and a little bit devilish - but also impassioned in its delivery, earnest in its beliefs and exciting in its melting pot of musical elements. The influence of the dance scene the band got into is the strongest here, with the extended jams the likes of the constantly curveball-throwing "Ulrike" (which appears again as short outro under "Meinhof", giving the album's end the feel of a TV show credits roll) and the appropriately punchy "Slap!" with its unabashed disco backbone and riotous horn section stabs; but it is also a lot more and you could argue the album's best parts are in that category. "Rappoport's Testament: I Never Gave Up" certainly is - structurally it follows the same extended mix approach as many of the other tracks (half the album's songs clock at over six minutes), but musically it's the band's first genuinely rousing anthem. It builds and builds over its anticipation-building snare rolls and the inspiring call-to-arms vocals, then letting that energy run loose through bursts of guitars, horns (now deeply embedded into the band's sound more than ever before) and some incredibly delicious bass runs. The Chumbas may have always had found the time to ridicule the bombastic stadium acts around them, but here they co-opt those evocative tricks into their own armament and the results are fantastic.

Slap! isn't a radical reinvention - the band would begin to introduce some of their previous elements back into their music soon again, but the point is that from here afterwards they'd add those into the mix on top of what Slap! introduces. A lot of the sonic principles - even if eventually moving further away from the trendier period elements specifically - for Chumbawamba's next decade or so are set into motion here, and to some degree Slap! still stands apart because some of those ideas are taken into extremes in the frenzy of the novelty. If there is a slight to Slap! is that sometimes it sacrifices songwriting for simply playing with the new toys and you'd be hard-pressed to argue that many of its tracks belong in the band's canon essentials. But also, that's a disservice to just how engaging and exciting the songs here are. Slap! is among the giddiest of Chumbawamba albums, and for once without any kind of slasher smile hiding behind the feel-good melodies. It bears the sound of band re-discovering themselves and finding it both incredibly inspiring and, to repeat a word I've used way too many times in this review, fun. So much so it's infectious; it's some of the most earnest fun (no cheek, no impish grin) I have with Chumbawamba too.

Physically: Both this and Shhh were reissued in 2003 as another two-fer, under the title Shhhlap! - and that's how I own this album. THe liner notes do not have anything additional and seemingly just copy the original ones fully, and in this case it's the lyrics together with a little blurb for each song to demonstrate what the song is about (usually featuring quotes from other sources, which you can then see directly being referenced in the lyrics). Jewel case, and this time a two-disc affair so both albums can be listened to separately easily.

[Reviewed: 03/10/2025]

SHHH

1) Shhh; 2) Big Mouth Strikes Again; 3) Nothing That's New; 4) Behave!; 5) Snip Snip Snip; 6) Look! No Strings!; 7) Happiness Is Just a Chant Away; 8) Pop Star Kidnap; 9) Sometimes Plunder; 10) You Can't Trust Anyone Nowadays; 11) Stitch That

A forced return back to the drawing board results in a boon as Chumbawamba refine their musical identity even further and stronger.

In 1992 Chumbawamba were all set to release their next album, Jesus H. Christ - a continuation and extension from the sample-heavy stylings of Slap! by going even further into that territory, interpolating and sampling some of rock and pop history's most famous songs (and titling songs after others even where no relation existed) while juxtapositioning them with confrontational song subjects. And then the big labels started knocking on the door - threatening with lawsuits, sending large bills to clear the samples, objecting to the themes of the songs where you could hear the much-beloved artists they represented. Chumbawamba folded and waved the white flag: a scrappy li'l band on a small independent label was never going to have a chance to stand their ground against the music world's largest giants. So, Jesus H. Christ was shelved... and from the ashes Chumbawamba took the songs, scrubbed off the samples, recorded legally distinctive not-quite-interpolations and brand new sections in their place, replaced a few songs with brand new ones and edited the lyrics to take a stance against the censorship they had suffered and the hypocrisy of the major labels they perceived. That's where we get Shhh as we know it now.

Jesus H. Christ is widely bootlegged and relatively easy to find, and... honestly, maybe it was for the better that there was an intervention (even if not a particularly great or welcome one) and Chumbawamba had to go back to the drawing board. It's a good album - much of its core is shared with Shhh - but also a little unfocused, a little too giddy about its cheeky use of famous song clips and excerpts to the detriment of its songwriting. It's somewhere in the border territory between a mash-up album and a legitimate follow-up to the previous album, and maybe not as interestingly subversive as it wants you to think. Knocking the band only for them to get back up again with righteous vengeance in their minds has given them a kick in the behind and fire in the belly: Shhh sounds more impassioned and motivated in this incarnation. The newly-recorded parts means more of the band's excellent musicianship gets to show, as they're moving back towards a more rock/post-punk-oriented sound again after the dance grooves of Slap!, and approaching the existing material from a new angle has given them a chance to iron out the arrangements. There's also now a running thread between the album's songs that binds it all together pleasingly, and even the songs which decidedly are not about the Chumbas throwing shade at the music business now have sudden interjections to tie them to it (guest-starring MC Fusion of Credit to the Nation interrupts both "Big Mouth Strikes Again" and "Sometimes Plunder" with brand new verses about censorship and the music industry in songs about the comedian Lenny Bruce and shoplifting housewives). The record as a whole feels more connected as a result, and so having to go back to rework the album has resulted in the band refining its strengths and made it so that the record has had to learn to stand on its own two feet rather than on excerpts by other people, giving it meaning and inspiration beyond originally intended.

Now that they're solely responsible for every sound (well, most of them) on the album it's also given the Chumbas a chance to hone their craft, and you could argue that they are truly coming to their own here. The album is not as loop-friendly or pop-adjacent as Slap! and the guitars are back in full force, but the playfulness is retained. The songs move between distinctive sections where big torch-bearing choruses are sat next to spiky dynamics and wink-wink-nudge-nudge bursts of twee. It is a rock album, but there's always time for a sidetract like the blissfully and airheadedly happy hymnal pop of "Look! No Strings!" or the Britpop Summer of Love leaning "Happiness Is Just a Chant Away" that frolics on proudly on top of a repeating drum groove and bright and jangly guitars. Chumbawamba clearly want show that they're nowhere near of being defeated and that the little legal trouble was only a minor setback, and that lends into the nature of Shhh being so overt and unapologetic and delightfully so. The title track is exactly the kind of manifesto you'd want from an album-opening title track and it grabs you tight the moment it swings into action, "Big Mouth Strikes Again" (the only song from Jesus H. Christ that has retained its purposefully misleading reference of a name) is a barrage of hooks on a boisterously dynamic carriage (the marriage of sly and swanky bass groove and a jumpy-shouty chorus works so well), "Sometimes Plunder" amusingly self-interpolates the chorus of "Ulrike" from the previous album and joyfully repurposes it for a crowd-cheering sing-along anthem. Even something as mild-mannered as "Behave!" (which appears here in a truncated, mostly instrumental and topically vastly different form than the more canonical single version) sounds like a statement of intent in the way it sonically pulls itself away from everything around it: its delicate and gently swooning atmospheric lushness where keyboard textures take the lead role is something wholly new for the band and it's placed here as if to prove that the group can do simply pretty too and get away with it. The most overt and and unapologetic, and basically the best track overall, is "Happiness Is Just a Chant Away" which takes shots at both Boy George's TV theatrics and religious cults and couldn't sound more jubilant about it if it tried, and it's so enchanting that you feel almost guilty for enjoying its snide sneeriness so much - but the melodies are the album's strongest, the tongue-in-cheek brightness is genuinely radiant and turning the hare krishna chant into a mantra for the cop killer Harry Roberts (a nod at a popular protest chant at the time, but still) in its finale, laden with Beatle-esque horns, is both so anti-everything it's almost juvenile but also so over the top that you can't help but love the balls of it.

Besides its famous-among-fans backstory of betrayal and vindication, the other key point of note about Shhh is that there is an an element of puzzle pieces clicking into place ahead of the group's next decade, the ideas from all of the previous decade finding a way to hold hands while neatly aligned under the band's signature attitude together with something new here and there too. Moving between styles and sounds has been part of the Chumbas' modus operandi since the beginning but on Shhh it's sounding confident and a deliberate choice to move forward with, rather than a happy accident that's worked so far. Perhaps that's why it can come across somewhat less exciting if you're already familiar with Chumbawamba to begin with: what you find here is the blueprint for the next several albums and so it might just seem a little too familiar if you come into this late, like I did. This was one of the last of the band's albums I heard during my coincidentally chronology-chaotic discovery of their works, and by that point it largely and simply came across like a Chumbawamba album. Approaching it from the right side of the timeline like I have this time around, you really see the wheels in motion and can appreciate just how the band is shaping up into their most famous form - already basically there at this point, as showcased here. It makes so much sense why for its reissue this album was packaged together with Slap!, as both albums together see Chumbawamba transition into the template you'd most recognise as Chumbawamba both lyrically (as in Slap!) and musically (moreso here). "You Can't Trust Anyone Nowadays", full of zeal and passion in its delivery and with a more elaborate arrangement that connects various band elements together until they snap to life in its explosive instrumental passages, could have a proud place on any of the band's albums in the next ten years, which is wild in its own way. It's also poetically appropriate that it's the last "proper" song here, as it opens the door to the future that it could easily inhabit.

Some patchiness pecks at the album - "Nothing That's New" awkwardly strides the line between a quaint interlude and a fleshed-out song without really doing either satisfyingly, "Behave" is clearly work-in-progress (highlight as it still is), the hymnal chorus of "Look! No Strings!" is amusing at first but wears out thinner as the song keeps going and "Stitch That" with its Sgt. Pepper drumbeat best demonstrates the priorities of Jesus H. Christ's writing process and how you can't necessarily make it more substantial just by playing the beat yourself. But warts and all it's difficult to argue against Shhh when so much of it kicks into place with gusto. Shhh is a sharper and more cohesive album than Jesus H. Christ ever was, and in the end what happened to the original version really was a fortune in misfortune. Rather than ending up with an album that would likely have found its place as interesting and entertaining side tract but ultimately a bit of a novelty record, the band now instead have a rock solid entry in their back catalogue that brightly displays their personal growth.

Physically: As with Slap!, I own this as part of the Shhhlap! double-CD reissue compilation and so the packaging is of course the same. The Shhh-specific liner notes are largely identical with the layout and style of the previous album's as well.

[Reviewed: 25/10/2025]

ANARCHY  

1) Give the Anarchist a Cigarette; 2) Timebomb; 3) Homophobia; 4) On Being Pushed; 5) Heaven/Hell; 6) Love Me; 7) Georgina; 8) Doh!; 9) Blackpool Rock; 10) This Year's Thing; 11) Mouthful of Shit; 12) Never Do What You Are Told; 13) Bad Dog; 14) Enough Is Enough; 15) Rage

Chumbawamba as an anthemic rock band coming in full bloom: melodic, intricate, hook-laden, poignant, anthemic. Essential.

Let's come clean about this from the onset: Anarchy was my first Chumbawamba album, stumbling onto it in my early teens courtesy of the CD-Rs upon CD-Rs of illegally downloaded mp3s that my sister's then-boyfriend shared with me. I was too young and naïve to understand the themes, too non-English to get all the intricacies and meanings of the actual words used to begin with, and I had zero awareness of who the band were or what they were trying to express. All I knew is that they had a bunch of songs that appealed to me purely on a superficial level and that I wanted to keep listening to them. Those mp3s also did not came with the cover art (this was the early 2000s, embedded cover art wasn't the norm) and that was perhaps important in itself, because when I finally did obtain a real copy of the album later down the line, it took me a considerable amount of time to desensitise myself to what stared at me every time I took it out of the shelf. For the uninitiated, unless you are looking at the censored cover (which I have included above to make everyone's browsing experience a little more pleasant), when you bring out Anarchy from your collection you are faced with the gruesome sight of a newborn baby being pulled out of its mother, in full-colour photographic glory. It's the kind of image that will get your album pulled off the shelves, leads to awkward conversations or simply pushes potential audiences away. Chumbawamba had by this point become a part of the music market (a small one, but a part regardless) and they were ready to deliver their most polished and seasoned work yet - one so strong in musical terms that even dumb foreign kids like me could get into it - and so they chose present it with a superficial layer that would make it unmarketable. Part of it was undoubtedly a promotional stunt (in the 'any publicity is good publicity' vein), but this willful act of self-sabotage also had a deeper point.

Chumbawamba after all were part of the music market now, and they were sharing that space with many other acts who were spending a lot of air time making sweeping political statements. As we know the Chumbas had been inherently political from day one and both talked the talk and walked the walk, but their albums were stocked in the same shelves as records from all these big rock acts with big budgets and even bigger egos who claimed to take a stand but never so much it would hit their bank accounts. Some of these acts were the same ones who had blocked the original plans of Shhh; one of them was the very same Bono who had been in Chumba's sights since the 1980s for his antics and whose perceived messiah complex in the early 1990s was now taking the form of fashionably ironic 'post-rock & roll' theatre that revolved more around Bono himself than whatever statement he was obfuscatingly trying to make. Being political on an arena scale was cool, and Chumbawamba were very obviously fed up with posturing rockstars and their surface-level antics. So what's a way to make sure their politics aren't seen as superficially marketable as the other bands'? Slam a grimey baby on the front cover to stop the album from being marketable altogether. Anarchy is one of the handful of Chumba albums that has no underlying concept or design plan dictating the proceedings but taking a swipe at the posturing rock stars of the day and their paper-thin pop-friendly politics takes up a good third of the album (once you remove the three interludes - "Doh!", "Blackpool Rock", "On Being Pushed"), and arguably gave the album its starting gunshot. "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette" is the opening manifesto about rich celebrities pretending to be rebels set to a lightly reggae-tinged alt rock groove, "Love Me" takes a direct stab at Bono through its hectic gatling-potshotting verses, politics are the latest craze in "This Year's Thing" (which sounds like a demented game show theme put through a pop song filter and marvellously works) and "Mouthful of Shit" spells out what it's about in the title while spitting it out with a more brutish groove ready to start a fight.

To add to this, Anarchy frequently speaks the same language as its opponents. Shhh saw the band return to a more "organic" approach and that move onto a full-on rock mode continues here, storming guitar walls and all: the line-up also extends with Paul Greco joining on bass, which frees former bassist Dillon to spend more time on the trumpet that's now becoming a de facto lead role in the arrangements. Anarchy is the first time Chumbawamba sound like an all-out rock band, but it's also one the most deliciously catchy pop albums that the 1990s produced. Every line is a thundering hook, every melody a carefully crafted earworm, and above all every chorus is an anthem you could imagine filling out a grand airspace in front of a massive audience and do it with gusto. The Chumbas are playing the same game as the artists they sneer on, but do it while still sounding thoroughly their own (you can't mistake those trumpet sections or the persistently powerful rhythm section) - they are simply answering fire with fire while also proving just how far they've come as both songwriters and song arrangers. The myriad of vocalists have all also found their roles within the group and represent different ways of delivering its messages, with the band having now reached a perfect understanding of how to balance and harmonise all the members of its choir: Nobacon and Dunst are charming scoundrels with spitfire takedowns, Nutter representing the fury and the flames, Watts providing the softer and more poignant phrasing and Whalley's gentle tone somehow being the perfect foil for all the others. Anarchy is as polished and refined as the artists Chumba would roll their eyes at, showing two can play this game - and in Chumbas' case the additional focus lets the band's fully-bloomed confidence and skill come out in full colour. There is a certain kind of transferable joy that comes from the band treating the listener to a song as rushingly excited and liberated as "Timebomb" with a snappy, super radio friendly structure but where the delight is in watching the riot begin to break out, while "Love Me" is basically just showing off how addictive you can make a song while still keeping it sharp and positively irreverent. Even the plethora of voice samples that punctuate the breaks between the songs (pulled from The Simpsons to the 1960s Batman live action show, with a couple of interstitials recorded specifically for the album to boot) have a sense of inspired playfulness to them, often acting like punchlines in their own right.

The flipside of Anarchy - its more intricate, emotive parts - are vital to what makes it such an all-roundedly excellent record. "Behave" on Shhh was a milestone for the group, cracking the ceiling open for them to be able to sound sensitive with earnestness, and they move further forward with it on Anarchy. Some of it brings forth simply a bit of sonic experimentation: "Heaven/Hell" takes a more philosophical perspective on what anarchy as a concept actually represents, and carries it out over an ethereal and textural synth pop soundscape that isn't million miles away from a more ambient-leaning Pet Shop Boys cut. The doo wop nod of "Georgina" (the revenge tale of an abused spouse or an allegory for class war? You decide) would have been a half-thought minute-long pseudo-interlude in any prior Chumba album but now the band give themselves the permission to fully lean into it, and if there's anything on this album that demonstrates Chumbawamba's particular blend of sugar and poison then it's this, with an utter delight of a chorus in its melodic lushness to boot. But the most immortal results come from simply being able to project feeling without any irony, and that's carried through in the album's (and the band's) most honestly personal songs to date "Homophobia" and "Rage" as Chumbawamba's place in the queer community is once again given a prominent spotlight, and this time the beam of light is stark and uncomfortable. "Homophobia" is a lament based on a true story of a violent incident incited by the titular "worst disease" (per the song) that grows from a quiet mournful hush to a soft call-to-arms march as the rest of the band join in and lead the song to proudly walk forward despite the bruises; "Rage" is a short epilogue of a last word, offering a tender final goodbye to victims of the AIDS crisis set to an aching minimalist backdrop, disappearing as quickly as it began and leaving behind an eery, elegiac silence (until it's broken down by the cheeky hidden track of a snippet of "Timebomb" pushed through an 80s stadium filter). Anarchy is brash, loud and storming, but it's also genuine and passionate: the importance of the songs that aren't tied to the more aggressive themes is that they reveal that heart and soul, after which those very same facets shine even through the less obvious places and makes the conviction behind the words apparent.

That's nowhere as clear as at the end of the album, with its big 1-2 ending punch. There are songs on Anarchy that I might think are better and ones that are more impactful statements when considered in solitude, but it's hard to think a song more quintessentially Anarchy - and Chumbawamba - as "Bad Dog". It's all here: the explosive rock and roll energy with steamrolling drums and spiky guitar walls, the triumphant trumpet singing its soaring melody over the noise, the holy fire coursing through the veins and let out as pure passion in the rousing vocal performance and the zeal of the band, the themes of rebellion of an oppressed part of society versus the oppressors where the song offers the spark to light up the torches with. The feminist kick-down-the-walls battle cry fronted primarily by Nutter is part of the Anarchy's last minute direct call to action (which follows wonderfully from the gentler suggestion to "never do what you are told" in the preceding prelude-esque piece softly sung by Watts) and after an album spent throwning knives and jabs at a distance, "Bad Dog" is where they rush the distance to grab the audience by the throat: earnest and personal but far from meek and vulnerable. It's an awe-inspiring maelstrom of energy and nothing short of magnificent, not only as a song in its own rights but as a pivot towards the album's grand finale as "Enough Is Enough" follows on from it. After an album full of snarking at how other rock bands pretend to play politics, Anarchy's last big move is for Chumbawamba to put their money where their mouth is and show how to really do it. "Enough Is Enough" is a towering rock anthem armed with a guitar-roaring shout-along chorus beaming with empowerment, might and fury, but rather than waste time in subtleties or oblique inspirational messages, it shouts loud and clear how sometimes the only course of action is the direct one, boiling it down to the snappy sing-along hook of "give the fascist man a gunshot". MC Fusion returns from Shhh, delivering the verses as an impassioned manifesto where he grabs the bull directly by the horns, and for once you can say that a rebellious rock song that sounds like a call-to-arms really is a rebellious call-to-arms. It carries some real momentum and boldness, and it's a mighty song to boot - Chumbawamba, indeed, showing how to do a big rock song and carrying it with the same honesty and heart that powered those more introspective moments.

Anarchy ultimately comes together as Chumbawamba's most cohesive, consistent, formidable statement - their best, in other words. This likely was an obvious outcome to conclude with the moment I mentioned in the start that this was the source of my Chumba awakening, but the strengths of the album become even more apparent once you do know your way around their back catalogue in general. It's an apex point for the band: the end of the evolution of taken across the last few albums and the peak of their expression as a rock unit, and chances are when a fan thinks about Chumbawamba then it's this particular mode of theirs that first springs to mind. From here they'd explore and experiment with different facets but with the development displayed in Anarchy comfortably in the core. But it's also tight, with not a second wasted on frivolous ideas where the concept comes before the song or something got pushed out half-baked, where even the interludes feel like they add something to the flow (though if you were to force me to remove something then the fruity organ jingle of "Blackpool Rock" arguably is rather slight, but also gone in a flash). Anarchy is to my money Chumbas' finest moment in pure songwriting through the strength of its melodies, the intricacy of its arrangements and the lyrics where the form and function are in near-perfect balance with its messages being clear but written with flair rather than overt bluntness, except where absolutely necessary. I think that if not for people's general unwillingness to listen to anything from the "'I get knocked down' band" or the original cover potentially terminating the intentions of anyone who does decide to take the step further, Anarchy would be seen as an essential piece of 1990s alternative rock - or at the very least it'd be the kind of cult classic that spreads through music nerd circles like a wildfire. Many of its themes still ring true today too, which is tragic as always, but makes it sound ever-fresh and ever-relevant. It's an impressive record no matter which angle you view it from - a true landmark for the band and such a defining statement of what they stand for.

Physically: A jewel case with a lyrics sheet, with some candid snaps of the band within. As per usual, each song's lyrics are preceded by a short blurb about the theme and topic of the lyrics and some additional commentary from the band. I own the baby cover version, too - again, search at your own discrection.

[Reviewed: 09/11/2025]

CD SINGLES

I NEVER GAVE UP

1) I Never Gave Up (Rondo Mix); 2) I Never Gave Up (Cass Mix); 3) Laughing (Never Stopped Mix)

Don't ask me why Chumbawamba released "I Never Gave Up" as a single in 1992, roughly two years after it had originally been released on Slap!, but the scant amount of widely available information on the Chumbawamba timeline hasn't been able to answer that - I can't even tell when in 1992 this was released, except that it's likely been sometime before the release of that year's long-play Shhh. But here it is, and all prettied-up too: re-recorded with a bit more clarity and power in the production, new vocals (and vocalist arrangement), and a minute shaved off the running time to make it run a bit tighter without sacrificing the build-up-and-release dynamic that's so fundamental to the core of the song. The song already stood out on Slap! for being such an earnest-sounding stadium(-ish) anthem amidst the dance- and sample-riffing aura of the rest of the album, and this version (titled the "Rondo" mix) takes it further, and it's to the song's benefit. This is arguably the best version of the already excellent song and a great example of how underneath all the irony and sharp teeth that Chumbawamba are most associated with, there's a set of genuinely great songwriters who could unleash grand musical statements with the best of them.

As for the B-sides, it's a little more interesting than the tracklist initially hints at. Chumbawamba have approached this with a little more thought than just throwing in a couple of extra tracks on the disc and together these three tracks form a song suite of sorts, smoothly moving from one to the next with shared elements running across to link them all together to the point that the two extra tracks are best heard in this context rather than outside it. The "Cass Mix" of "I Never Gave Up" is a dance remix of the original which layers the song with a more contemporary electronic production while reducing the vocals to simple soundbites, but most importantly it not only retains that brilliant bassline that runs the song forward but downright emphasises it, placing it in the front and centre of everything. On its own it's a pretty decent remix overall - and if you dig early 90s keyboards and other adjacent dance production aesthetics, that's always a bonus - though nothing anyone would really crave to hear outside this single. Here however amidst the other two songs it not only works as a reprise of sorts for the A-side, but it also foreshadows the next as partway through a new section appears where the band interpolate Pet Shop Boys' "Shopping" by way of "l a u g h i ng", and this then leads onto the next part of the song trilogy. "Laughing (Never Stopped Mix)" functions practically like an outro for "I Never Gave Up" as a punchy piece of post-punk bringing back that rock energy, riding on a sturdy backbone of a drum beat and rapid fire vocals from the guys of the group returning to the mix; but as the name suggests, it also revisits the "laughing" hook from the Cass Mix and brings the whole sequence together. As a song it can feel somewhat like a collection of bits glued together by the rhythm section and its abrupt end sounds like they simply ran out of the said bits, but it concludes the three-song run very well. Retrospectively it's more notable from an archeological perspective: when Chumbawamba found themselves in a position where they'd suddenly have to re-record a bunch of material that ultimately became Shhh, in the process they revisited "Laughing" and turned the best sections of it into the title track of the new album. So if this sounds somewhat like an unfinished demo, it might just be because my ears are so attuned to the "final" version later that year.

Physically: A black-spined standard jewel case (with a very fun re-interpretation of Pet Shop Boys' cover for Actually, chosen due to the musical references within I'm sure), and with a further excerpt from Primo Levi's "Moments of Reprieve" in the sleeve within which was already quoted in the booklet for Slap! next to this song.

[Reviewed: 19/10/2025]

BEHAVE

1) Behave; 2) Behave (Brittle Mix); 3) Misbehave (Brittle Mix); 4) Misbehave; 5) Behave (Version)

"Behave" is a standout on Shhh but the version that ended up on the album was clearly undeveloped. The atypically tender and delicate song had some of its original purpose robbed when the song lambasting Pete Waterman of Stock/Aitken/Waterman fame was robbed of all of its lyrical interpelations during the legal issues that forced the removal of every unlicensed excerpt from the original version of Shhh, leaving behind a mostly-instrumental song that was clearly meant to have bigger intentions. Some months after the album's release, Chumbawamba found the opportunity. In spring 1992 pop star Jason Donovan won a lawsuit against a magazine that had vaguely hinted he might be gay, calling it a "poisonous slur" of being portrayed as such; meanwhile Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder had his own tantrum about homosexuality. Chumbawamba, firmly rooted in gay rights activism and queer culture, needed to respond and saw fit to re-invent "Behave". Largely re-recorded and over a minute longer with a clearly defined chorus, a more developed structure and a full new set of lyrics commenting on pop culture's and the wider society's repression of homosexuality. Finally, "Behave" gets the chance to spread its wings and shine as a genuine gem in the discography: the melody is one of the band's most unashamedly prettiest, the production is even more lush and atmospheric than it was before and the arrangement really lets the song spread out beautifully, highlighting both the faint ache in its heart as well as the pure strength of its effortlessly gliding chorus. The single version of "Behave" is unarguably the definitive version.

There's a gamut of really good b-sides too. "Misbehave" is a wholly different song to the similarly-titled A-side though it approaches the same subject, but it's a lot more confrontational about it. The verses slink closer to the band's more aggressive tendencies with its brimstone-fueled thrust and buzzsaw guitars soundtracking a litany of pop culture figures who are either queer or have benefited from queer-originated elements: it's less of a song and more of a rant, but it's both gripping and devilishly entertaining. The "Brittle Mix" of both songs offers a more intense interpretation, mainly by adding a more hectic and muscular drumbeat underneath: with "Misbehave" the differences are relatively small (though the DnB-esque drum kick does add to the song's energy), but "Behave" sounds a lot more epic with a more booming programmed beat pushing it forward with greater momentum. The original is better, but the alternative mix offers an alternative perspective indeed and it works quite well. There is also a hidden third version of "Behave" waiting at the end of the album, which is the original single version but with everything except for the drums and the vocals removed. The vulnerability and melancholy still ring through loud and clear, and the stark contrast of just the beat against the softly-sung vocals makes it an unexpectedly poignant version and actually my favourite of the b-sides.

Physically: A cardboard sleeve with a short essay at the back explaining the origin of the song and expanding on the topic - both cultural anti-homosexuality and the hypocritical appropriation of queer artists and influences in pop culture - in a manner that you couldn't fit in a song.

[Reviewed: 27/10/2025]