Fat White Family's new album about 'life as an eternal contingency'
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London band Fat White Family are the bad boys of Britain's postpunk scene, calling themselves "a drug band with a rock problem."
Even their first album, released in 2013, pushed the boundaries of taste with its title "Champagne Holocaust." Now comes their fourth album, "Forgiveness Is Yours," released on April 26.
They made headlines when former prime minister Margaret Thatcher died in 2013, showing band members in front of a Brixton pub. Fists raised, they stood by a sheet they painted with the words "The Witch Is Dead!"
Frontman Lias Saoudi says "Forgiveness is Yours" is about "life as an eternal contingency." Somewhat fatalistically, he says it's about "no longer suspecting, but knowing that this sh** will never get any easier... In fact, it's about to get a whole lot worse."
"Today You Become Man" is less a music track than a piece of prose underlaid with sounds, in which Saoudi vividly recounts one of his older brother Tamlan's formative experiences.
At the tender age of five, he was brought from England to their Algerian father's hometown in the Atlas Mountains. One day his father tells him they are going off to buy books. He finds himself in a strange living room.
Lying on a living room table, with a wooden stick in his mouth to bite on, he is circumcised without an anaesthetic.
The accompanying video is a homage to "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve. While Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft making his way through London, bumping into passersby as he goes. In his version, Saoudi jostles his way through the Algerian town of Maillot, where the act of child abuse took place.
In some of the more psychedelic tracks, such as "John Lennon", you can almost hear a slight echo of Pink Floyd. "Work" is a driving track that resonates with a touch of The Sisters of Mercy.
Fat White Family are punks, less in terms of sound than in their spirit. The 11 tracks on "Forgiveness is Yours" are packed with variety. This is an unconventional work that refuses to dull, even after repeated listening.
