Crown Court – Heavy Manners

Oi! A word that never quite instills happiness when it comes to my musical tastes, but also a word that has so much love for what it set out to do as a genre, to unite punks and skins in the fight against the evil of fascism and the backlash against the middle-class punk invasion that tried to take it away from the street.  Angry and working class is what it is, sometimes not pretty, yet at its heart its got a love for its fans that rivals non.  My problem is that some of it, just mimics and copies what has already been done so many times, lyrically great, but musically it just doesn’t grab like it should to make that message sit still where it should, this is where Crown Court comes in to save the day, a band that has 100% their own sound and way of making Oi! A place I don’t mind going with my ears, hence their latest album Heavy Manners has now made it up there with some of the best albums of this year.

Let’s kick off by saying if you think your gonna get some Cock Sparrer or Sham 69 type sound here, think again.  I would more liken this album in particular to a blend of Slaughter & the Dogs and Paranoid Visions, it’s Oi with a huge chunk of Rock n Roll I’d say.

First of all we are given a classical entrance to and album that throws you off kilter, this is soon blasted into oblivion by ‘Left For Dead’ a song that says so much as to why this band and maybe Blitz have the Oi! Thing nailed, its not being nice and maybe shouting a little, its of the street and from the street.

It’s when your here a song like ‘2 O’Clock Hero’ you know your in the presence of “I’m an upstart what ya gonna do” anger, it takes me all the way back to when I was angry and locked up, a time when you had to fight for your actual existence, and haven been there its not hard to feel the strength in numbers that comes through every song, ‘Mad In England’ kills it when it comes to the where we are now in Britain/The World of capitalists and land owners, unable to live in the place we call home.

Angry yes, Oi! definitely, but when you’ve been there whenever that might have been, its hard not to go back there and feel the same, even though time softens the will, history always sits right there in your veins.

Don’t go in here unless you’re fearless and want to understand why. 

Pre-Order the album HERE

Find all the rest of the band info on FACEBOOK BANDCAMP