Body Tax – Blood On My Teeth
Let’s run a quick game of imagination! Try to picture a typical rock band, possibly from the late 1980s. It doesn’t have to be a group per se. Done?
What are the group members wearing? They’re likely wearing leather jackets and some sort of spikes on their arm. That’s an easy guess, to be fair.
What is their stance in the photo that you have in your mind? The group members, all guys, are flexing their muscles and doing their best to appear tough. That wasn’t hard either.
Finally, what are the lyrical concepts of some of their songs? They deal with fighting for freedom, fighting for vengeance, and fighting for the love of it, right?
Congratulations, you didn’t just describe Manowar, but the vast majority of rock groups. Most of them are Manowar – folks who try to act tough and write songs about conflict. The vast majority of them, it also has to be said, don’t mean it, but have a pretty good idea of what sells and what doesn’t.
On the other hand, you also run into beautiful aberrations like Body Tax and the group’s single “Blood On My Teeth,” and you’re forced to take the musicians at their word.
As tense-filled as boarding a train, filled with drunken soldiers, which is due for the front line, “Blood On My Teeth” doesn’t hide away from revealing any hard truths, because the music is simply not built with any kind of intention like that in mind. No, this is a kind of primal therapy made using guitars and a strong reminder of the need for the truth in music making.
All Lost Joys – Trouble
Of course, there were also folks playing power chords and banging their expensive mohawks around. But most of the original punk-rockers were their era’s philosophers. And Richard Hell, the greatest mind of that whole bunch, prophecised a world in which people would no longer be able to feel emotions, and would require shocking entertainment just to get something out of life.
He was right! And if you, my friend, think that you’re exempt from these contemporary natural laws, you are sadly mistaken. Just listen to Sweden’s All Lost Joys. Surely, there’s awareness of our dwindling human touch and an attempt to help. How many of us don’t turn to our favourite rock record just hoping that it’ll slap us around a bit and, like a pin prick, extract some kind of feeling from these old sacks of bones?
On “Trouble” by All Lost Joys, the singer projects the vocals like some kind of ancient love curse. Whoever hears this might just risk it all, leave everything behind, and choose an existence of risk and peril. The sounds, an intense kind of glam-punk, Patti Smith trying to front an 80s L.A. band, fit the general mood just right. But you know what’s really odd? You listen to this, and you think, “Yeah, of course they’re going to listen to the siren’s call. What else is there to do? There’s certainly nothing better on television.” You might just need to feel something and this might well help.
