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Single Review: Cockwomble – All Of The Money! None Of The Style! EP
Cockwomble
All Of The Money! None Of The Style! - Self Released
“I must have missed the meeting where it spelled out how you dress …”
It’s the laziest of review thievery to regurgitate the press release, but Cockwomble describe themselves thus: “(They) sound like all your favourite bands from when you were young that eventually broke up because they weren’t successful enough and all hated each other.” And that rather neatly fits my first impressions on spinning this EP. Cockwomble exist in their own universe where everything you hear suggests that they really don’t give a fuck if you like them or not. In latter days, this would have made them Peel faves in the vein of Danny & The Dressmakers and the rest of the Fuck Off Records roster from around 1980. And that’s a good thing, because this EP is firing missiles at virtually every aspect of modern living from way out in the leftfield where none of the mainstream ‘protest’ music really lives anymore.
Cockwomble have three big guns: that outsider stance, musical dexterity, and a wicked lyrical sharpness. They are clearly no less than angry geniuses with a hitlist of grievances that you might imagine would make this EP an awkward listen. It is not: it is a joyous and immaculately tuneful series of four short, furious and probably treasonable essays. All delivered with a sarky grin. The title track tears a new one for the entitled twats in government, WANT STUFF BUY STUFF buries the myth that consumption brings happiness. Henry XXXXXV speculates that somewhere down the line, the heir to the throne will have ‘webbed feet and a tiny little head’ and Punk In A Dress slaps down the off-the-peg punk stereotype and reminds us that ‘real punks wear trousers’ over a jaunty Jilted John riff. And rightly so. Imagine this, then, for a supergroup – the Ramones with Frank Black fronted by a jolly Mark E Smith = Cockwomble.
All of the money! None of the style! is a memo to 2018 Britain. If you’re a Tory consumerist monarchist with a prefabricated idea about what punks look (and sound) like, this EP is definitely not for you. Cockwomble are the Stewart Lees of British punk. Please, please make them famous.
Cockwomble‘s website is here and All Of The Money! None Of The Style! can be pre-ordered here
