Raging against the decadence of England's pleasant pastures, The Chapman Family conjure wretched majesty that intermittently blossoms in flourishes of hope, before recoiling swiftly back into the mire of glorious despondence in which they habitually lurk. Burn Your Town, with its typically anarchic moniker and sleeve artwork depicting racy, ultimately loveless underpass romance amidst scatty graffiti tags is a record conceived in dark satanic mills, to which the opening metronomic clangs of a pepped up 1000 Lies attest. Yet it's not all doom and gloom per se, Anxiety providing boisterous BPM drumskin battering and a spot of vocal harmonising atop guitars roped in from indie records of years past, years in which the troupe ought to have delivered this torrent of downcast grandeur to inboxes the length of the country. Of course there's little to lament now that the promise of a spectacularly turbulent record has been fulfilled, but whilst ferocious live shows previous often seemed as though they could only end in minor/major tragedy or mishap, you had to fear that this delay may have asphyxiated any interest in the band. Fortunately, having toured with the perpetually effervescent The Joy Formidable and ahead of a forthcoming tour associated with diehard supporters Artrocker, honour, column inches and such stuff as dreams of a job are made of have deservedly been restored. A blizzard of cymbals tussling with murky feedback whistles and whirrs on She Didn't Know before Kingsley's newfound croon calms instrumental tempest, whilst Something I Can't Get Out reeks of a paranoid desperation that your ears just won't be torn away from. Million Dollars, the melodramatic climax to evenings in which a red wine-doused frontman would shriek and shout with a microphone lead wrapped around his neck, arteries bulging around the contours of black plastic is tribalistic in its essence and bolts viscerally through seven emotion-ravaging minutes, equal parts ramshackle and raucous, whilst Sound Of The Radio has been toned down substantially, towering tremolo guitars introduced to shroud the raw sentiment that lies within. Kids sounds more so than ever before like a sociopath fleeing asylum, squawking to Mclusky's more celebrated moments of bedlam all the way to disaster, before an arresting, if unexpected a cappella take on Virgins sees acrimony and antagonism exchanged for acoustic tranquility that beautifully offsets Kingsley's assiduous and exasperated social enmity. The Chapman Family is not a cult. It never was. But if you're looking for somewhere to channel any excess faith, the brothers Chapman will rough it up for you in all the right ways.
