England Screaming is new recordings of songs from The Medway Delta 1982-4, that Wreckless Eric originally released as A Roomful Of Monkeys in 1985 on Go Discs! As Captains Of Industry. It was not a double platinum unit shifter, no one liked it, including Mr Goulden! So now 40 odd years later he's resurrected the songs, re-recording them to his own personal satisfaction, hoping the rest of us will be equally enthralled of these nine early 80's Medway kitchen sink anthems. Anything on the album that Eric didn't play himself was by his assistants, Marc Valentine, Amy Rigby, Sam Shepherd and Graham (Graham) Beck.
The album opens with Lifeline that has Eric at home in the sunshine, looking for a lifeline to make things work, the bitter recriminations are not far away, but the slow steady riff fights against them.
Home & Away isn't about the soap opera, but more for the lads that follow a club Home And Away, never expecting them to be winners, always in need of some improvements, the structure of the song has the feel of The Small Faces keenly observed melodramas, more twists and turns just a few notes away, How will life turn out for the lads, while you chip in for another whip round.
Playtime Is Over is mourning the loss of all sorts of 70's pleasures, realizing you've got to get a job and settle down, the fun has ended, life is every bit as mundane as the slow riff driving it along, the sad reality of being a grown up overwhelms him.
Lady Of The Manor a twisted jealous song for a local yuppie woman, who spends all week working every hour, so she can live in the biggest house in town, behaving like she has it all, her hubby gets made redundant and well it's the early 80's, nothing good is gonna happen, the bloke gets emasculated by his powerful wife, this song brings up many questions, to where it sits within modern interpretations of the battle of the sexes, has Thatcher won or is this a different battle, is it pro or anti female empowerment, this can be read both ways, a wonderful five and a half minute dichotomy to set off a debate.
Lady Of The Faint At Heart is for the upwardly mobile woman in designer jeans, living in a house with chipboard walls, domestic drama of suburban mundanity of the sort Eric can't stand, sounding like Tymon Dogg, at least no one's sticking botox in their faces yet.
The Lucky Ones she's gonna make it big, be an executive if she gives into the bosses advances, get a leg up, if your one of the chosen, this song is the imprint of all the girls revealed in the Epstein Files, who would all have been told they were The Lucky Ones to be chosen to go to the parties they went too, this song is achingly timely, even if in this tale she actually gets married off to one of the predators at the party. Musically this is very Ronnie Laine inspired.
Food Factory another scandal of disease and bad practises at the Food Factory he works in, the sort of stuff that turned me vegetarian not long after this song was originally written, he feels like he'll never grow up, just continue a mundane working class life, going from dead end job to dead end job, round and round it goes weeks and months pass all the same.
Our Neck Of The Woods opens with a sample of Maggie before the organ and guitars rampage around, the anger he feels for local politics and all the yuppies voting tory, despite the area being bleak with little sign of the imagined prosperity that will come, once you own your own rabbit hutch made with clapboard and Formica, join the wilderness of the Medway delta, with nothing to do but follow Maggies dream. I remember having good times selling shoes in his neck of the woods back then, it didn't seem quite so barren. The album ends with the not so Secret Coda a synth piece of ambient new age chillness.
Find out how well he succeeded at https://shop.tapeterecords.com/wreckless-eric-england-screaming-4414 https://wrecklesseric.bandcamp.com/album/england-screaming https://www.facebook.com/eric.goulden.1
