Conflict - Statements Of Intent 1982-87
Mortarhate Records released two 5 CD box sets in March 2021 collating the vinyl output of seminal punk band Conflict from their formation until 1994. Nathan Brown (from Louder Than War) walks us through the first five years of riotous anarcho-punk.
Right from the get go it has to be said that Conflict were a big deal to many people who were active in the punk movement of the 1980s. They signalled a move away from some of the sacred cows of the anarcho-punk scene and the adoption of different, more confrontational tactics. Conflict were broadly trying to achieve the same things as Crass but they appealed to kids who were living the reality of being a punk on the street rather than in the safety of a commune. (“Who’s dropping out, we’re dropping in!”) And they looked like punks! They had jeans, mohicans and big spikes. Attacks for looking like a “freak”, or arrest on sight, were part of a price our counterculture would often pay, and a pacifist stance was increasingly an own goal. And then there was animal liberation, which Conflict did a lot to push more than most in the punk movement. The legacy of Conflict still resounds to this day.
Conflict have been occasionally mired in controversy in recent years. There have been some questionable social media posts and a song from 2003 – An Option – was either clumsy irony that failed to hit its mark or revealed some disturbing attitudes towards asylum seekers. There isn’t the space to discuss that here and it falls outside of the subject matter for this review. No matter the conclusion people come to over those issues, it does not detract from the importance of Conflict both lyrically and sonically in the years covered by these box sets. The contribution they made to UK anarcho-punk is undeniable.
Disc One – It’s Time To See Who’s Who
This disc features the first album with the tracks from the first three Conflict 7 inches: The House That Man Built, To A Nation Of Animal Lovers and Live At Centro Iberico.
It’s Time To See Who’s Who was Conflict’s first full length release. It’s a youthful affair intersecting where anarcho punk meets yobbish street punk (e.g. “Standing in Oxford Street waiting for a bus when a copper stands beside me and says I’m nicked for sus”) – which I think may have been the underlying appeal of the band over the years. What is these days termed “relatable”. Songs of protest in the context of life as a young punk. There is a good balance of intelligence and exuberance and the album contains songs that would remain staples like Meat Means Murder, Exploitation and The Guilt and The Glory.
The House That Man Built on Crass Records was Conflict’s first release – a varied EP with a mix of male and female vocals and the band feeling their away around for their sound. Hearing the opening strains of the first track Conflict still makes the hairs go up on the back of my neck. Words spewed out with more anger than most punk bands. Even the famous tinny production values of Penny Rimbaud couldn’t curtail the onslaught. Wargames is haunting and dark. Blind Attack with its attack on street fighters from both left and right would pop up again. I’ve Had Enough throws up a bouncy, almost happy, sound while putting forward a not happy feminist message. It’s a song that can be forgotten from Conflict’s back catalogue and deserves to be heard more, and in the current news cycle is more relevant than ever:
“Your filthy morals just fucking stink
Don’t try and get my hands in your sink
Don’t call me your “bird”, I’m not your pet
Well, I’ve had enough, right up to my neck
This is mankind and mankind kills
Why should women be raped at your will?
This is mankind and mankind kills
Why should women pay for man’s thrills?”
To A Nation of Animal Lovers was an important 3 song EP. It featured a collaboration with Steve Ignorant, still in Crass at the time, and sowed the seeds for his future involvement with Conflict. But more importantly it was arguably one of the first animal liberationist (as opposed to animal rights) records in the punk milieu. Previously a few anarcho-punk bands had argued the wrongs of eating meat, wearing fur or testing on animals – arguing that animals had rights. To A Nation… went further, arguing for liberation and with a forceful message that Direct Action was the only appropriate response. The imagery on the poster sleeve was unforgiving and not for the squeamish ensuring the message was clear. I count myself among the animal liberationists who heeded this call to get involved in a more direct way. Musically it signalled a harder edge, and featured prodigious use of feedback as another instrument, which itself became part of the Conflict sound. On Whichever Way You Want It the song starts off with a haunting guitar melody, the space around it adding tension. The bass brings in a mournful sadness and then begins to build the momentum, along with thundering drums before the lyrical attack kicks in. Lyrically it paints a vivid picture of hell for animals inside a vivisection laboratory. The resounding chorus of “Liberate” provides the only sane response. Protest songs don’t get much more powerful. Live at Centro Iberico was an EP on Poison Girls Xntrix label (later re-released on Conflict’s Mortarhate label) that showcased 6 songs that would go on to feature on the first album. The power and precision of Paco’s drumming in particular leaps out from this recording.
Disc Two – Increase The Pressure and The Serenade is Dead
The album Increase The Pressure showed that Conflict had become even more focused with a lyrical attack on the establishment, animal abusers, cruise missiles and infighting in radical activist circles. “Never Mind The Bullshit, Here’s The Facts!”. Its angry political punk rock at its best with tirades of lyrics spewed out with scarcely a pause for breath. Rather than platform rhetoric, Conflict still retained a relatable street level response to the challenges around. Musically it was precise with a sharpened attack thanks partly to Kevin Webb’s guitar style, and made full use of Paco’s prowess behind the drum kit, with the bass providing the much of the structure. Every song was powerful, but Tough Shit Mickey stands out for many with its slow introduction building up to a cleverly crafted tirade of animal liberationist anger:
“Because before too long there will nothing left alive
Not a creature on the land or sea, a bird in the sky
They’ll be shot, harpooned, eaten and hunted too much
Vivisected by the clever men who prove that there’s no such
Thing as a fair world with live and let live
The royal family go hunting what an example to give
To the people they lead and that don’t include me
I’ve seen enough pain and torture of those who can’t speak
So I’m gonna speak for them in an all-out attack
And if someone tries to whip me, then I will fucking whip them back
Because I have had enough of this madness in those theatres of hell
Enough of them hounding the fox to the kill
Of baby seals being clubbed, their mothers cut up
They satisfy their greed, their wealth’s built on blood
Of their slaughterhouse haunting the back of the mind
The gas chamber of the farm life, the end of the line”
The live side of Increase The Pressure features 9 songs from across their output recorded in 1983, breaking off for a news report style account of the Stop The City protests the previous year. Conflict were on the ascendancy and Increase The Pressure marked them out as an important band. The angry rabble rousing feel it conveyed was that punk was a movement which could make a difference. The front cover featured a sea of demonstrators with a circled A flag facing off cops, while the rear was a burning meat wagon – presumably from the Brixton riots.
By this time Crass had started imploding, soon to play their last gig, leaving Conflict in a prime position to occupy the vacancy left in many an anarcho punk’s heart… and on the back of their jackets. The great irony was that far too many free thinking anarchists wanted leaders to look up to and Conflict were seen by some as those leaders. This theme would vomit itself up on The Final Conflict album later.
The Serenade is Dead EP follows and was a precursor of what was to come on Increase The Pressure with its leading bass line and feedback attack. In 3 songs the band covered a lot of turf. They tried to make sense of the stark difference between the basic human emotion of love and war mongering – which was ever present when we lived under the threat of the bomb. A belligerent attack on how we are governed – “The System Maintains law and order throughout the land”. A disgusted look at how punk was becoming a diluted rock cliché.
Disc Three – Only Stupid Bastards Help EMI
A recording of a gig in LA released to raise money for an anarchist bust fund, the title album targeted New Model Army’s Only Stupid Bastards Use Heroin message and threw it back at them for “selling out” to EMI. A 22 track set covering songs from across their releases up to Ungovernable Force, with angry introductions to songs. What would otherwise be a tight performance was at times chaotic, breathless and interrupted by fighting and the band’s response “Fucking leave ’em alone” presumably directed at security. As the gig progressed fighting in the crowd ensued. “Stop it you stupid cunts, cut the fucking fighting out you stupid dickheads.” “What’s the matter, is it past your bedtime?…go home and get your dummies”. Depressingly similar to the way Sham had to deal with trouble at their gigs. Other bands might have edited out the trouble, but this was part of the band’s identity. Jumping in and getting involved. Calling shit when you see it.
Disc Four – The Ungovernable Force, This Is Not Enough and The Battle Continues
For my money The Ungovernable Force is still one of the best punk rock albums of all time, and I’m someone who finds it incredibly difficult to even distil down to a top 10. This LP will always be in the top few. By this time Big John who had played bass from the beginnings of the band had been replaced by Oddy from Broken Bones. Starting with the You Cannot Win audio montage and ending with the eerie piano and almost operatic singing of To Be Continued, in between the album switched musical styles here and there but kept returning to a high octane, aggressive form of punk rock. It was hard hitting lyrically as well as musically. A self-serving political elite, the Metropolitan police, animal abusers, nuclear armageddon, punk rock clichés were all within their sights. It was all packaged within images of riot cops and with a context of riots across the UK.
“Belfast…Brixton…Toxteth…Tottenham…St Paul’s…Handsworth…Reclaim the streets, reclaim the towns, reclaim the nation” Like Increase The Pressure before it, The Ungovernable Force was another call to arms, challenging the anarcho-punk movement to put its words into action. This Is The A.L.F spelled out the philosophy and motivation of animal liberationists whilst giving details of tactics anyone could adopt. And on The Arrest they gave legal advice about how to deal with the Police.
Before the Ungovernable Force, in early 1985 This Is Not Enough backed with Neither Is This was released. Raw, loud and angrier than ever, I remember reading a review at the time (possibly in Green Anarchist) which proclaimed this single to be like “Crass meets Motorhead”. And in those 3 words you have it. That is why everyone loved Conflict! A signal of what was to come, it had a harder metallic edge and featured a full on attack on the state, rooted in the recent experiences of new age travellers, the miner’s strike, inner city riots and the SAS assassinating Irish republicans.
The Battle Continues is one of the stand out records by Conflict, the introductory bassline to Mighty and Superior preceded the rather similar Seven Nation Army by White Stripes by nearly 20 years. The crisp, haunting guitar really builds this song, in much the same way Whichever Way You Want It did a few years before. The vocal attack is full on as expected. B Side To Whom It May Concern is another blast of high octane punk rock anger littered with swearing and attack on the powers that be, with its rallying cry “If it’s a Fight They Want they’ve got it”. It is a clue to the direction the band was heading in for The Ungovernable Force.
Disc Five – Turning Rebellion Into Money
A double album when it came out on vinyl, and taking its name from a line in White Main In Hammersmith Palais, it documented the Gathering of the 5000 Brixton gig at which Steve Ignorant performed Crass songs for the first time since their demise. The title had a flip side too. Turning Money into Rebellion as the release was intended to raise funds for various activist groups. The gig even got a mention in Simon Parkes book about the Brixton Academy as it descended into a police riot. What with Stop The City, a rise in animal rights direct action across the land and the Met’s antagonism from their fortress at Brixton nick mere yards away it came as no surprise.
You can hear the cavernous acoustics of the Brixton Academy as the band race through 32 songs in 1 hour and 18 minutes. A jubilant crowd sing along to the Crass songs. The extended reggae section on The Day Before deserves a listen and you can hear the chaos of on-stage theatrics involving attempted arrests by “coppers”.
There were fights breaking out in the crowd. And behind the scenes it was all a big gamble for the band. With hindsight you can hear and stress in the vocal performances. With an emotional outpouring and words delivered at such a break neck speed, sometimes you didn’t get all the words! Some of the inter-song outbursts on the live recordings would be the source of amusement in years to come.
An important part of my teen punk years. The Ungovernable Force still kicks ass after all these years. You Cannot Win features samples from the jolly BBC drama Threads. Great stuff. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome Mr Evil Twin, thank fuck for your comment.
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