Proud City Fathers (https://www.facebook.com/ProudCityFathers/) are a hard hitting London outfit that featured on here last year with a track from their Outposts album (https://justsomepunksongs.blogspot.com/2019/07/proud-city-fathers-sten-guns.html) and who return today with one from new album Veneer.
The album features a dozen gritty political punk bangers. Most are short, sharp bursts of furious energy. A definite plus point is that the vocals are clear enough that it's fairly easy to make them out which is great as this is a band with a message. A negative is that I think I'm too thick to understand most of what they're telling me. Or at least that was the case on first listen. But I'm listening closely, doing a few google searches and most importantly thinking about what I'm hearing. Granted songs like Cunt and Organised Crime seem fairly self explanatory but what's General Ludd about? Google suggests he lent his name to the Luddites, the 19th century textile workers who destroyed machinery as a form of protest. Not sure if he's the same guy they're singing about but lyrics have him sipping cocktails on the verandah whilst the masses are drunk on propaganda and the cannon fodder lie in pain, knee deep in mud miles away. I need to investigate further as it all sounds very interesting. The title track is Veneer. A veneer is of course a thin decorative covering and I notice the song is accompanied by a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche which goes “There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.” The theme of the album?... And on it goes, hidden meanings coated in a pounding soundtrack that has me scratching my head and tapping my feet in equal measure.
It's available on limited edition vinyl and you can find it streaming here: https://proudcityfathers1.bandcamp.com/album/veneer
If you do know what this song is about (ie, if you aren't as thick as me), leave a comment. General Ludd...
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