Wreckless Eric – England Screaming

Tapete

The most recent release from the lately rejuvenated Eric Goulden finds him revisiting Captains Of Industry, an album he made forty years ago that originally involved a couple of Blockheads and the drummer from The Piranhas.

The finished article, a succession of songs written from the points of view of people on their uppers in a dying Medway town which could be anywhere in the England of the ’80s, was poorly recorded and even more poorly received. The results were anaemic and overlooked and it seems after forty years of letting the dust settle, Eric has chosen to take them back into the light and inject new blood.

He has taken eight of the original ten tracks from the album and the results are as good as anything he has released this century with the sound vibrant, the guitar raucous and his voice still a knowing sneer but with so much more humour and possibly empathy in the tones. The songs and sentiments stand the test of time, with the circumstances in which some of the protagonists find themselves not too dissimilar with unfortunates nowadays. His visions of small-town, small-minded people “hung like donkeys with almost twice the mental prowess” can be seen on any street corner on a Saturday night and the slightly shambolic but lively approach to the material fits in well with the current musical climate.

Wreckless Eric certainly fits into that classic British songwriter tradition of Ian Dury, Madness, Nick Lowe and the like, but here on this set of songs, written at the height of the Thatcher government, he encapsulates a sense of disaffection that is very dark in tone. Luckily the Billy Braggish approach to some of the guitar and a riotous rock’n’roll drive prevents the songs from becoming maudlin, and the crisp production certainly appeals. It isn’t all guitar rush though, with the melancholy piano and birdsong of “Lady Of The Manor” introducing a more muted approach that highlights the wonderful observation of a working class woman happy at home in her terraced garden.

The interplay between the more synthy songs and those with a bit more guitar via different rhythmic approaches make for a a varied selection and he has done a great job not just of updating the songs but, as he admits, laying some ghosts to rest. There is a London-centric music hall romp about getting dressed up and heading up West for the night and there is an extraordinarily grim observation of working in a food factory set to rock’n’roll guitar, with some even aping the sound of the starting siren. The album is an acute observation of a time in this country when things seemed remarkably bleak; but it doesn’t jeer or harass, just observes and reports. It just so happens that the musical making is a delight and the singer has lived to tell the tale.

There are definite parallels with the state of things today, but I’d like to think we have it a little better. The album ends with the brief floating dream “Secret Coda”, which acts as a reminder that this is essentially a set of stories that stands up forty years later and shows that Eric is still an essential part of our songwriting heritage. Long may he continue.

-Mr Olivetti-