Some people are cunts. Impressively unbending, unfathomably unflinching, arduously obstinate, irritatingly irascible, outright utter cunts. Like Pete Voss, for instance. He’s the sort of bloke who’ll nick your last Rolo, smoke your last fag, punch your girlfriend in the head, then shit in your bed when you’re at the garage buying you both a case of lager. But, for all this, he’s a cunt who’s also a visionary, a purveyor of music that alters things, that rattles your membrane and makes you jive like a bunny, that stimulates your thoughts, and offends old ladies, that vomits in the face of mediocrity, sneers at the righteous, and hammers nails in to the fingers of cute children.
“Wet myself in Burger King / Slipped a disc by the fag machine / Got chucked down the stairs again”
The man’s a beast! But you’d rather have a drink with him than Daniel Bedingfield wouldn’t you? Unlike a million bands you could mention who speciously contrive attitude to make little boys hard, Campag are the real deal. Violent, angry and often down right nasty, like on ‘Ain’t No Funky Tangerine’:
“I will bang it in your face / And I will draw blood from your skull / And I will watch you drown in your own vomit”
Lyrically there are some gems in here, Voss speeding and rasping and spluttering, often brilliant, more often baffling, random stream of consciousness though somehow utterly focused at the same time. I mean, there aren’t many people who can say “metro boulot dodo / I’m in Kokomo” and not sound like a complete tool or maybe it’s because he’s a bit of a tool that he gets away with it. Like Mark E Smith, he seems to know exactly what he’s talking about, even if you’re not too sure.
Campag have been away for an eternity, remember, an enforced exile, but has that made a difference to their mission? Ignored and laughed at by many, they come back with the sort of swagger Liam Gallagher can only admire, and others can only try and imitate.
“We are the trumping men / Who are the trumping men? / Who wants a trumping men?”
Good question. The music is still a mix of paranoid baggy, catchy, glitchy, psycho scat rhythms, and taut, unrelenting menace, but this is even harder and definitely more driven than their last outing. In fact it’s hard to see how 'It’s Beyond Our Control’ could be improved.
Pete Voss is back and if you don’t like it he’s not likely to lose any sleep over it. That’s the thing about cunts, at least you know where you stand with them. In fact, because they’re so direct you can’t help but like them for it.
Jeremy Allen
reviewed on 25 Jul 2004
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