Politically Happy
What can you say about a band like The Levellers? Formed in a watering hole in Brighton back in 1988 when football shorts barely covered your underwear, they have gone on to release many albums - this being their 8th to date - as well successfully putting their own Devonshire festival together, which now boasts 10,000 people. The mere mention of the bands name conjures up memories of summers gone by (usually filled with rain showers!), tye-dye, glow sticks, shaggy haircuts, tents and revolting porter-potties, and on a personnel note, college crushes and experimentation...
There are screeching violins and furious guitars jumping around all over first song, 'Last Man Standing' which sees the band go back to their classic folksy-rock sound. Second song and single, 'Make You Happy', is an acoustic guitar driven tune of the catchy variety, and one of the better songs here.
Considering the bands need to be a spokesman for all that is evil in this world, or rather the government, the songs are all pretty damn jolly, and will have the most lethargic of people jigging back and forth to songs like, 'For Us All', or ' Confess'. However, you need look no further than the albums cover art to see that this is by no means all about hugging, making love and lentil licking. The most striking feature is our cousin Uncle Sam from across the pond in shadow, but with blood clearly on his hands - I think even the village idiots among us may get what the Levellers are heavily hinting at...'Knot Around The World' keeps us politically up to date and 'Who's The Daddy' pokes us awake with the realisation that we don't know who pulls our strings in life, but we sure as hell don't do it ourselves. However in the song 'Sleeping', we are told that if we want to do something then we must stand up and fight - mixed signals there then...
All in all with 'Truth & Lies', the Levellers have brought us an album that is packed with messages to a happy-clappy beat. The truth is that if they rapped, had heavier guitars and stopped taking the happy pills then they could well be a Rage Against The Machine covers band, without the impact. For Levellers fans this is more of the same and another good addition to your collection, however to the rest of us, we know what they sound like, and this isn't going to change many opinions, so go back to your tent, grab your rizzlers and float away before your tent does...