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Rating: In the 80s, which many of us remember for jackets and Duran Duran, there were also a lot of other things...
Those years gave us the end of what started in the 70s with the farewell of historical punk and grandiose rebirths with bands that marked a new era in world music by resetting schemes, redesigning scenarios, and resetting standards, not only in the wave but also in the core of rock itself: we could name names in abundance and everyone would have their own to add/remove.
The discovery of the "aussie" scene had just reminded us that some punks had died, but punk was by no means dead, and indeed, the germs had moved to infect others. Those who were already infected continued to do their best to spread the disease. It is about one of these outbreaks of punk diseases (or "post-punk" as was read then) that I absolutely must tell you about, before it is too late and their CDs move from the 5-euro shelves to the realm of the unfindable.
In 1981, a certain Stiv Bators, the skinny frontman of the unforgettable Dead Boys, after a solo album for Bomp, got tired of America and fled to England, where together with the remnants of Sham 69 minus Pursey - under the name Wanderers - he released another album, titled "Only Lovers Left Alive," destined to no response.
That won't do, probably thought our Iggy emulator, a bundle of nerves who avoided conscription and Vietnam due to a physique that earned him the label "an ill-nourished imp." And joined by (believe it or not) Brian Jones and Rat Scabies from the Damned, who were joined by ex-Hersham boy Dave Tregunna, he abandoned crazy ideas of recycling like the Eric Carmen of punk and put back on his leather pants.
Rat Scabies was then replaced by Nick Turner from the Barracudas, but the Lords of the New Church were born. Their first record was released in 1982 under their name. And what other prophetic name could they find, better than this? Theirs was simply THE music, what everyone wanted to hear after the Sex Pistols disbanded and Iggy Pop got lost in the fog of the Arista years... The quintessence of English proletarian rage + the senseless violence of night at CBGB, the dirtiest and most unhealthy rock sound and perversely desirable that had come out of an amplifier after the Dolls and the flashes of Thunders' lucidity, more "old style" than the brilliant revisions operated by Gun Club, Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du, Descendents, and many others, without having to go to the antipodes to find the Birdman emulators. Here, there was no new air, but you were in the presence of the sacred: you were in a church, and you were breathing the incense of the old, ancestral rite of rock'n'roll, all profane, all wonderfully raw, dirty, and bad as it should be.
The Lords will make 3 albums (the first for Illegal and the other two for the legendary IRS) and a handful of singles plus some live releases, continuing their career until '89 when Stiv Bators sends everyone away and finds - poor guy - his end less than a year later in Paris.
The three studio albums are all three masterpieces, with an unmistakable musical style and music that becomes darker, more gloomy, more personal: Bators is a punk icon, unaware of his ability to be one only when he stops seeking this status voluntarily, and the musical verve of Brian James, if I may, is no less; the Lords fill terrible voids left by defections and fatalities, celebrating for the adepts until the temple falls into the ruin of a cult that fades away but does not die, awaiting other gods.
To summarize the entire trilogy (where my personal favorite is "Method To My Madness": stunning, and the title track one of the 10 most beautiful pieces of universal music), we briefly mention the beautiful anthology, "Killer Lords," released on CD in 1993, which includes absolute masterpieces like "Method To My Madness" indeed and the magnificent "Murder Style" along with punk level pieces like "Fresh Flesh" and the ballad-like "Gun Called Justice" from their last album along with "Open Your Eyes" more "New Church", "Russian Roulette", "Dance with Me" and the splendid "Live for Today" from the two previous works plus the usual unreleased and B-sides.
Listen to Stiv's unmistakable voice with the respect due to a great priest of punk: the Lords' records were the ones needed at the time of their release, they are still albums that not listening to at least once is a crime. Think about it, if you love rock'n'roll.
1. Dance With Me (Re-mix)
2. Hey Tonight
3. Russian Roulette
4. Murder Style
5. Black Girl White Girl
6. Live For Today
7. Method To My Madness
8. Open Your Eyes
9. I Never Believed
10. Lords Prayer
11. New Church
12. Like A Virgin
13. Girls Girls Girls
14. Opening Nightmares
15. Dreams & Desires
16. I'm Not Running Hard Enuff
17. Fresh Flesh
18. Sorry For The Man
19. Gun Called Justice
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
08 Open Your Eyes (03:27)
(Bator/James)
Video games train the kids for war. Army chic in high-fashion
stores. Law and order's done their job. Prisons filled while
the rich still rob. Assassination politics. Violence rules
within' our nation's midst. Well ignorance is their power tool.
You'll only know what they want you to know. The television
cannot lie. Controlling media with smokescreen eyes. Nuclear
politicians picture show. The acting's lousy but the blind don't
know. They scare us all with threats of war. So we forget
just how bad things are. You taste the fear when you're all
alone. They gonna git'cha when you're on your own. The silence
of conspiracy. Slaughtered on the altar of apathy. You gotta
wake up from your sleep. 'Cause meek inherits earth...six feet
deep.
Open your eyes see the lies right in front of ya.
Open your eyes.....
11 New Church (03:31)
When the heroes have all died away.
Priests and politicians have all lied away now.
Actors after all were only acting.
Church killed knowledge.
Took the world a slave.
Ya gotta walk have all lied away now.
Wear the uniform of your gang.
Purpose in life's just for living.
Dream merchants fantasy surreal so real.
Divide and conquer - that's their game.
Beneath their haircut and clothes we're really all the same.
They threaten our lives with nuclear war.
Gonna cruficy us just once more.
Join the new church.
Be a lord of the new church hey.
Truth can't be found on the television.
Throwaway youth ya gotta take a stand.
Music is your only weapon.
Spanners in the works go start your gang.....
chorus
New church.
Join the New Church.
Be a Lord Of The New Church.
Lords Of The New Church - now.
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