Larrikin Love
The Freedom Spark

THE REVIEW

I just can't do it.

I know I should avoid the NME pages like the plague, but punctually, out of habit or boredom, I go and take a look, if only to read what's happening across the Channel, where, like it or not, the rock industry is always among the most influential, a kind of traditional, folkloric, and indispensable element in life in Albion. I read this name, Larrikin Love, different from the usual "The .....s", and I discover that for them, the NME has coined a new label, the Thamesbeat! And what might that be? I delve deeper, perplexed and doubtful, suspecting yet another joke, but I don't give up, attracted by the news that none other than Patrick Wolf, author of the splendid "Magic Position," is among the guests. I decide to get it, without spending, just in case I discard it or at most park it, until the next new sensation.

Play: forget Thamesbeat, this is classic punk with a reggae twist (pardon the Thames), clearly Clash-inspired, already proposed in various forms by the Doherty boys, but with something extra that sets them apart. The LL instill with a simple, never banal approach touches of vaguely gypsy violin, turning the sound towards folk territories, bringing them closer to the Pogues, especially in "Fall at the Feet of Rea". The first two singles ("Six Queens" and "Edwould"), rightly placed at the start after a brief intro, immediately showcase their ability to manipulate the ingredients, smoothly transitioning from wild punk to reggae and carefree folk. In "Downing Street Kindling", there’s a cry out to England that has nothing more to offer, because everything the author loves came before 1984, wishing for a bonfire in Westminster with the Downing Street door. "Well, Love Does Furnish a Life", a Brit-pop song that draws from the Smiths tradition, completes the picture of a sort of banner-waving revivalist desire for an era, the eighties, so dear to ours and which, even today, continues to make the hearts of those conceived in those years beat.

In the end, a pleasant album, that flows smoothly and quickly, for a total of eleven tracks and thirty-three minutes, in the name of genuine fun, between a pogo, an ass shaking, and a deliberately nostalgic pause. An unexpected and thus welcome surprise, for those who are tired and saturated with an increasingly monothematic landscape, which has become lately the popular rock made in UK. Not necessary but enticing.