The Damned - The Black Album

As far as I am concerned Machine Gun Etiquette was/is a triumph and even though the band lost bassist Algy Ward due to him and Rat Scabies not getting along they returned within a year with their fourth record The Black Album. Paul Gray joined on bass and although there have been many line up shuffles through the years The Black Albums line up has been the current band for the last three years and even though they are now gentlemen of a certain age they are astounding live.

We have a double album here where one whole side is taken up by one song and the final side is six live tracks (songs from previous records but showing even then they were a serious live band) but if you have not heard this record don’t be put off by if you think this sounds like filler as this record is well worth your time.

Opener Wait for the Blackout is a an excellent start hard and fast from the band Sensible, Scabies and Gray storm the last minute showing they could play and Vanian seems to have an extra depth to his vocals, its an anthem and a bloody good one at that.

This is not just punk from the band (although we have that on Drinking About My Baby, Sick Of This And That and Hit or Miss that show they have lost none of their edge when they are in the mood) we have goth and psychedelic moments throughout with synths dominating Lively Arts and Sensible’s vocals on Silly Kid’s Games reminds me of 60’s Kinks and Twisted Nerve is a shuddering beast of a song with added trumpet.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde we open with an acoustic before Gray comes in and a more restrained mature Damned, with church organ outro, than we have heard before and The History of the World, Pt 1 Oscar winner Hans Zimmer produces and plays synth as The Damned probably made their first play for a mainstream big hit, didn’t work but it’s a good pop single.

The piano takes us into, and dominates, 13^th Floor Vendetta all whispered vocals and layered sounds and Therapy the band decide to display their confidence, and to be fair ability, as it’s over one minute and a half before Vanian arrives and then Sensible also takes the lead and then they decide to just trash about and Sensible lets his guitar meander.

We end with the seventeen minute plus Curtain Call, Vanian in from the off as they develop their gothic image and when Scabies rattles in nearly three minutes in the song launches itself as we have peaks and troughs, dramatic piano at the five minute mark as the song fades before rain and birds arrive with footsteps and you think that’s it but no the synth relaunches then the machine that is Scabies reappears, Sensible decides on a solo before they stop for Dave to rejoin us and they all want back in for the final three minutes, its madness and brilliant, some I have read, complain its to long but I love it.

And that’s where I must stand on this one, its all over the place but when its good its bloody excellent and they are rightly now celebrating the genius of founder member Brian James and fifty years of the band but Vanian, Sensible, Scabies and Gray really were/are a perfect fit.

8.75/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Wait for the Blackout