Slow Faction - Oblivion

  Is it just me, or is 2019 turning out to be a wonderful year for punk music? There's been a large number of album of the year contenders already released and today you're getting a song from yet another addition to that list. 

  Slow Faction, the London punk band featuring Kit Gould (drums), Umbi Liszka (bass), Lee Peterson (rhythm guitar) and John Youens (guitar & vocals) are like a talented artist painting a portrait of what they see happening around them. Their canvas is a bleak affair... John's lyrics describe failed politicians putting our country up for sale, he shakes his head in despair as president orange brands anti fascists as terrorists, he calls out the haters who long for a country that never actually existed, he tells little Tommy name-change that he and his knuckle draggers aren't welcome round here. Slow Faction.... a politically charged band describing a landscape darkened by greedy, crooked politicians and racist bully boys. A band influenced by punk's early days that are sadly, 40 years down the line, still having to shine a light on pretty much all the issues that their forebears rose up in protest against. Another influence, Woody Guthrie, was singing songs like these before pretty much anyone reading this was even born and one of his most famous songs gets the Slow Faction treatment on their new album (All You Fascists... is a bonus track). Tragically it's still very relevant.

  The album's called Unilateral Declaration Of Independence and it's their best work yet. The cd version should be ready for release by the 5th October but the digital version is already on Bandcamp as a name your price download : https://slowfaction.bandcamp.com/

  The song I'm highlighting today is a brooding 5 minute masterpiece titled Oblivion...

A claustrophobic place to live
Rigid rules and discipline
A hostile legacy
Of the previous century
An anxious childhood full of pain
No understanding, only blame
A suicide attempt in vain
So they had him sent away

He just wants to stay at home
He has to try to be alone
By day he dreams of peace
Of idyllic domestic bliss
But he knows that the wolf inside
Can never be satisfied
Until it takes control
In the struggle for his soul…

As darkness falls, turn down the lights – oblivion
He dies a little more each night – oblivion
Dull the ego, numb the pain – oblivion
No strength left to live or die
So he dies his ‘little death’ each night


The city’s calling with its lights
A different world comes out at night 

Cabaret and music halls
He can’t resist the siren calls
Gambling dens and red-lit bars
He knows all the secret doors
By night he gives in to lust
By day only self-disgust

Internal dissonance
External decadence
As the dreams of Weimar fade
A polarised confusion reigns
There’s fighting on the streets
As the nationalist fever grows
As the old order falls apart
He escapes into his own world

So now the sun’s setting on the old regime as politics diverges to the far extremes
A populist danger is infecting the land as they look for the ones who will make a stand
What else can he do? Now the fascists are in power…
What else can he do? When they label him a danger…
What else can he do? When the Death Camps are waiting…
What else can he do?