Ideas and originality often seem like debased currencies in the directionless, stylistic catch-all that passes for the Rock’ n’ Roll scene these days. Indie guitar bands continually regurgitate sounds and atmospheres while even bands I like (take a bow the likes of Interpol and Editors) are lauded when in reality they are not in the same league as the trailblazing outfits who inhabited the landscape around the turn of the 1980s.
This isn’t meant to read like some old fart’s diatribe, though it probably does regardless. There’s always great music out there, though in these Myspace and Facebook-controlled days you sometimes have to be prepared to wade through rivers of mediocrity to find it.
Thankfully, even the combined effects of fire, flood, grotesque governments and corrupt bankers still can’t quite eradicate the essential eccentrics out there. And, just occasionally, such eccentrics can get within grasping distance of the keys to a much wider kingdom.
LUPEN CROOK is one such individual. Over the past five years, two albums, numerous EPS and continual live work he’s jemmied his way into the public consciousness the old-fashioned, Independent way and built up an enviable following along the way.
Thus, it’s fair to say Crook’s reputation precedes as his third, much-anticipated album ‘The Pros & Cons of Eating Out’ lands in our midst. Once again, he’s joined by his trusty musical lieutenants Tom & Bob Langridge (aka THE MURDERBIRDS) though this time round new bassist Clayton Boothroyd has been encouraged into the brood.
Well, if you’re looking for both ideas and execution – not to mention urgency – then ‘The Pros & Cons of Eating Out’ delivers in spades. Although Crook’s notes suggest the record comes from embracing the opportunities of chance meetings along life’s highway, to these ears the songs sound like his very own address to the state of the nation. Or the “Dysunited Kingdom” as he witheringly refers to it.
Bogglingly catchy opener ‘Fantasist in March’ is a memorable wake-up call. In it, Crook begs the question “are you happy to be another waste of energy floating around in space?” while the band set up a thrilling rush of sound. The breathless burlesque ‘Will o’ the Wisp’ follows adroitly in its’ wake, making like Berthold Brecht transplanted to Brightlingsea, while the passionate ‘Sleeping Lions’ goes for the jugular of the current economic and political malaise (“play dead like pigs on the poles who are dancing for men in the dirty black holes of our country”), though its’ embittered conclusion (“it was always gonna come to this and I’m so fucking glad it did”) seems to revel in the idea of simply making it worse.
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There again, Crook would probably be the first to admit the folly of believing pop stars have all the answers. During the barnstorming, guitar-centric ‘Devil’s Son’ he seems all too keen to reveal the demonic self-portrait lurking beneath the Dorian Gray-style exterior (“I’m as black as an orchid, I’m heading back to where I belong/ I’m as cruel as the cursed land you have me walk on”), while on both the RSPB-baiting ‘How to Murder Birds’ and the dangerously exhilarating ‘Hourglass’ (“and every heart is broken in two ‘cos everything you’ve heard is true/ I’ve got thrills in me, I’ll put pills in you”) hedonism and destruction walk a very fine line indeed.
He pulls out all the stops for the grand-stand finish. Opening with a sample of Charlie Chaplin from ‘The Great Dictator’, ‘Ode to Fucking Everyone’ is not only one of the year’s finest achievements, but it’s perhaps THE anthem to end all anthems for the dispossessed. Admittedly our hero sings its’ chorus of hope and defiance (“hang on everybody that don’t belong...it’s gonna be alright!”) like he’s just heard the four-minute warning sounding, but then this is a Lupen Crook record. What did you expect? Peter fecking Andre?
Erudite and devious, intelligent and mischievous, Lupen Crook’s songs of modern day dirt and decay have the sort of resonance that has stood London’s best singer/ songwriters from Ray Davies to Peter Perrett in such good stead along the way. When he cheekily admits “you need me like Carl needs Pete” on ‘Ode to Fucking Everyone’ he hits it on the head. In our bland X-Factor-endorsing world, we need cocksure bastards of this calibre to vigorously shake things up. Please God (or the other guy with the forked tail) send us more like Lupen Crook.
Lupen Crook & The Murderbirds online
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