Album review: Soldiers Of Destruction – Cause And Affect

Much of what passes for punk these days is a little too polite and unfailingly correct. Not so the Soldiers Of Destruction. As Anti Them detonates the album in a furious, one-minute, anti-this and anti-that tirade, the most obvious reference point is the gloriously boorish Anti-Nowhere League. It’s a comparison that crops up again on Sick Of The Sight Of You (featuring the sneering line, ‘You got daddy issues/ Here’s a box of tissues, boo-hoo’) but it’s not the only weapon in the Soldiers’ arsenal.

There’s a blunt political message to Death Or Glory and Undefeated, while End Of A Rope and Also Gazes take a more inward look. And then there are the party songs. The boozy bluesy Drinking For Two and the suitably gabbling Amphetamines – featuring a guest appearance from former Kyuss and QOTSA animal Nick Oliveri – smell like three days of Rebellion Festival debauchery condensed into two minutes apiece.

Musically, they’re not reinventing the punk rock wheel. Soldiers Of Destruction originally formed in London at the start of the 1980s. They never recorded anything the first time around, but played shows with legends like The Exploited, GBH and the UK Subs. Four decades on, that classic UK ’82 sound still provides the base. It’s raw, aggressive and hugely effective in its simplicity, loaded with big gang-chant hooks, galloping bass runs and deliciously scabrous riffs. Frontman and famed music journo Mörat doesn’t so much sing as rant at high volume. It’s not exactly subtle, but it is filthy and furious fun.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: GBH, The Casualties, Anti-Nowhere League

Cause And Affect is released on June 18 via American’t.

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