However much they may have been rubbished and/ or ignored by the mainstream, Anarcho-Punk collective CRASS could realistically boast that they were in a position to affect real socio-political change by the summer of 1981.
Their gigs were packed, their record sales were enormous and the release of their third album ‘Penis Envy’ raised eyebrows in all manner of ways. Aside from the album’s thoughtful feminist stance, the music itself had come along in leaps and bounds. Forging an exhilarating Punky Pop sound with only the occasional foray into the Avant Garde, ‘Penis Envy’ was by some way the most consistent and engaging Crass release to date and – Gawd ‘elp us – even members of the hated music media had to agree that they weren’t just mindless boot boys after all. They had in fact morphed into a force to be reckoned with.
Thus, while the idea of Crass recording their very own ‘Sergeant Pepper’ might seem risible on paper, the resulting ‘Christ – The Album’ was certainly intended as a major celebration of the band’s collective strength. With the luxury of time and money on their side, recording sessions took a leisurely six months and it was 1982 (221984) before the album appeared as a two disc set in an immaculate black box with a booklet (entitled ‘A Series of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums’), a controversial catalogue number (BOLLOX 2U2) and another of the band’s priceless collage posters, the centre-piece of which featured Margaret Thatcher having a shit.
In a typically frank (and entertaining) essay to accompany this excellent re-issue, Steve Ignorant witheringly says “as if” to the suggestion that Crass circa ‘Christ – The Album’ had become “proper musicians.” One of the reasons ‘Penis Envy’ sounded more palatable was that Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre were entirely responsible for the vocals. With ‘Christ...’, Steve Ignorant’s Gatling gun vocal invective was centre-stage again, with Joy De Vivre on hand for just two songs and Eve Libertine relegated to the sub’s bench.
As a result, much of ‘Christ – The Album’ returned to the band’s more abrasive Punk sound, albeit with better production and slightly more complex arrangements. When it was good, it was inspiring – the exhilarating ‘Rival Tribal Revel Rebel’, the tense and taut ‘Beg Your Pardon’ and the menacing media-control rant ‘Nineteen Eighty Bore’ – but tracks like the anti-consumerist ‘Buy Now Pay As You Go’ and Steve Ignorant’s parental broadside ‘Mother Love’ were bitter, lumpen rants however well they were intended.
Penny Rimbaud’s typically insightful sleeve essay suggests that by the time they came to record ‘Christ...’, Crass had begun to feel they had said more or less all that had to be said about family, school, Church, the State and the ‘system’ in general and at times songs like the anti-Nuke ‘Bumhooler’ and the media-blitzing ‘Have a Nice Day’ feel like they’re retreading old ground. Having said that, the two Joy De Vivre-sung tunes, ‘Birth Control ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and ‘Sentiment (White Feathers)’ suggested a new direction. With its’ spinning drums and claustrophobic atmosphere, ‘Birth Control..’ was closer to something from The Pop Group’s nightmarish ‘Y’ than street Punk, while ‘Sentiment...’ still sounds genuinely eerie years later and probably did more to turn folk away from their carnivorous ways than anything else out of left field before The Smiths came along with ‘Meat is Murder.’
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Consequently, while ‘Christ – The Album’ was still very recognisably a furious ‘Punk’ album, the desire to stretch sonically that began on ‘Penis Envy’ remained intact. This comprehensive re-issue includes some out-takes and these include an earlier take of the track ‘Reality Whitewash’. Shorn of its’ orchestral keyboard arrangement (supplied with wonderful incongruity by Paul Ellis from Hot Chocolate), the song sounds like it could quite easily have been on ‘Stations of the Crass.’ Perhaps the album’s most successful track, however, was the closing ‘Major General Despair’ which married Punk and polemic in style and ended on an optimistic note: an extract from an impassioned E.P Thompson speech from a CND rally in Trafalgar Square where he exhorts : “we can win, we can win! I want you...to sense your own strength!”
The second part of ‘Christ – The Album’ (‘Well Forked – But Not Dead’) was ostensibly a live recording of the band’s 100 Club gig from the summer of 1981. Recorded on 4-track, it was hardly a classic, but it’s a lot more listenable than the dire live side of ‘Stations of the Cross.’ More pertinently, the tracks are linked by a series of surreal conversations, Zen poems and random aural outbursts: the kind of thing that’s a lot closer to John Cage and Stockhausen than the street Punk of Discharge. In here were the seeds of the improvised approach Crass would adopt wholesale on their next LP ‘Yes Sir, I Will’: an album that would alienate fans and (some) band members alike.
Perhaps it might have been better if Crass had called it a day after this album. Certainly listening to ‘Christ...’s second coming now - and especially the valedictory ‘Major General Despair - it feels as though they were drawing a line under everything they had hoped to achieve in their intensive five year campaign. In the end, the album’s initial release turned out to be a hollow victory because while Crass were recording it, the horror of the Falklands campaign had been played out and Anarcho-Punk’s mightiest force seemed to have been left wanting in response. In that sense, while ‘Christ – The Album’ was (and still is) an impressive record, it also marked the beginning of the end for Crass.
The Crassical Collection at Southern Records online
The Crass Arkive online
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