Four Letter Word is officially The Band that Would Not Die ™. They’ve been through so many line-ups and bust ups in the past 18 years it would surely take a Tony Robinson lead Time Team styled excavation to unravel this South Wales bands turbulent history. But here they are, back again, another line-up, a brand new album, and still roaring a familiar battle cry.
Singer Welly is the only constant, and, in a recording capacity, Leatherface growler Frankie Stubbs, who has now handled production duties on all 4 FLW albums. You can imagine those two at the mixing desk, gargling on tankards of gravel and whiskey, exchanging tales from brutal campaigns on the frontline…
And it’s tales that these songs tell, crisp and punchy tuneage with biographical narratives spanning adolescent days of being put down and maligned, to present day anger at an increasing Orwellian landscape, fuelled with bitterness and frustration at a punk rock scene the wordsmith decrees too competitive and merely built on flash-in-the-pan 5 minute fashionistas. He has a point, but we’re living in different era now, a million miles away from the heady days when folk like Welly cut his chops. And those times are not coming back.
The theme of reflection weighs heavy on this album, and goes right on thru to passionate closer “Street Where I Grew Up”… “counting cracks in the pavement in the summer sun, chip off the old block, my father’s son”… sentimental discourse, and, dare I say it, all part of the maturing process. I can relate.
I thought FLW reached their pinnacle with 2005’s cracking “Like Moths to A Flame” album, and sure enough this collection of 10 songs didn’t immediately make similar impact. But subsequent plays have seen them grow on me, with pace. All told a tidy piece of work.
Pete Craven