GBH – Perfume and Piss

GBH is the group your older brother was blasting when you were just discovering Blink 182.  The UK street punk legends first picked up the street punk flag in 1978, and have been waving it proudly every since.  They’ve been remarkably non-commercial for the majority of their career, sticking close to the sound responsible for winning over their career-defining core.  But for those of us who were nothing more than an idea when GBH first hit the streets, the band seems to be entering a late career resurgence, returning from a six year dormant state and signing with Hellcat Records for their eleventh studio album,Perfume and Piss.

Perfume and Piss is the perfect point to jump on the bandwagon for those like myself who were curios about the band’s legacy, but didn’t know where to start.  Partnering with a high profile punk label likeHellcat was a perfect scenario for GBH, the Epitaph imprint allowed the band to keep it’s coarse exterior, but throwing enough production behind the disc to let their personality shine through.  Think of GBHas an English Rancid – right down to the healthy respect for rockabilly (check out “Cadillac One”).

Clean but sufficiently ragged, Perfume and Piss is loaded with classic club-filling anthems – or should I say anti-anthems.  Opener “Unique” blasts listeners with a healthy dose of reality, as front man Coli Abrahall shouts “you’re not unique” from the onset in his energetic but gravelly tone.  The title track keeps the societal critiques from the street blunt, calling out “self serving servants” and politicians alike, and “This Is Not The Real World” is as blunt as it’s title implies.  The band has never been terribly eloquent, but their bluntness bleeds authenticity.

Unlike a lot of groups out there today, GBH doesn’t hesitate to rock out regularly.  Their 70’s lineage makes for a far more aggressive display than many of today’s young acts, and it works well for the group.  For instance, the punchy solos on “San Jose Wind” land with an aged rock n’ roll swagger that can only result from years of punk rock solidarity.  Likewise, guitarist Colin “Jock” Blyth’s messy guitar licks on “Invisible Gun” drench the quartet in a healthy dose of distortion-filled attitude.

When all is said and done, Perfume and Piss is constant but never exhaustive, and exerts all the balance of a band that’s been around the block more than a few times.  Granted, in security wades predictability, but that shouldn’t be confused with anything detrimentally exhaustive.  A few lyrical hiccups do interrupt album flow – the obvious being the over trodden ground of “Absolute Power” (with the obvious tagline “absolute power absolutely corrupts”).  But GBH has been around forever, and a late career resurgence like Perfume and Piss proves that these old timers still have what it takes to stick around for a long while more.