Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell

Over the past few months I’ve considered myself lucky enough to leave my front door, walk casually into local drinking dens of iniquity and experience live and in the flesh, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, or the ‘Mighty’ Shovell for doze dat know, unleashed and at their bloodcurdling best. For it’s live that this Hastings three-piece seriously take no prisoners. A magma-thick wall of sound bludgeons you into submission, intense yet tuneful, and savage enough to bulldoze all those who stand in their pathway, showing no mercy.

Live is where it’s at then. Or at least that’s what I thought until their debut album ‘Don’t Hear it, Fear it’ landed on my (un)welcome pirate themed doormat in all its vinyl gatefold glory. Not only have they managed to capture the intensity and excitement of their live shows on this magnificent record but these metal alchemists have produced an artefact which is a call to arms to all vinyl junkies the world over who feel that those fucking swirl records are actually worth the effort!

After 5,000 years of civilisation, it takes a kind of genius to produce something this joyously primeval – a band who declare the keys to transcendence within the grooves of scratchy and hoary old, Sabbath, Sir Lord Baltimore, Budgie and Blue Cheer records, but with their own unmistakably modern swerve on the whole thing. They even have the rock and roll clout to not only get the legendary Tony McFee to play on this album but conjure up the mighty Groundhogs to a drinking town with a fishing problem and play such a seminal gig that grown men and women through tears of pride will tell their grandchildren they were there in years to come.

 The name says it all. No clichéd dumb pseudo metal moniker for this crew; Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell hardly trips off the tongue like Cream, but then that’s the whole point - It’s a name you have to make an effort to remember and once it’s locked in the cranium, it never leaves. Naming your band after an English naval officer who fought in many important battles of the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries is quite clearly a stroke of insane genius. And like the aforementioned Blue Cheer whose live show was supposedly capable of exploding birds in flight and turning the air to cottage cheese with the sheer volume, the Shovell power trio’s brand of ear-splitting bluesy and electrifying rock seriously harms the local seagull flocks in flight, rattles the oaken beams of pubs and leaves the converted devoted and the devoted contented.

Mark of the Beast kicks off with hypnotic and disturbing incantatory rushes replete with acoustic jangles, pausing initially to catch its own black breath with a tight drum volley then phasing to fuck like a psychedelic warlord disappearing in its own smoke, it eventually builds and builds, until suddenly slamming to a shuddering echoed halt before a massive blitzkrieg assault riff slashes into the mix and we’re off with a filthy Paranoid-esque tune of pulverising intensity and eardrum-obliterating psyche-punk. The half-snarled lyrics sound vital and uncompromising. One of the most exciting album openers in fucking years!

The initial rush of ‘Beast’ is briefly tamed with a crawling bass line of such addictive proportions it should be banned by all world Governments. Devil’s Island with its hacking chopping guitar fretwork stalks around the head nodding bass like a wolf slathering at the jowls ready to strike. A beautifully damaged vocal from a volatile state of mind hangs suspended over a block hard concrete bed of bass and drum. The neo-hardcore punk’n’roll slab of heroic brutishness, iDeath, begins with raucous burst of nihilistic raw energy , before breaking into a sludge slow acid rock doom grind and via the classic rock gallop back into ragged punk rock glory. It’s tight as a gnat’s chuff. Admiral sir Cloudesley Shovell are tight as a gnat’s chuff, switching tempos with stunning speed and dexterity, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Red Admiral Black Sunrise with its tales of incarceration, crime and guilt ratchets up a ferocious hard punk funk grind, with murderously sinister speed freak foundations, built upon a colossal riff. A doom-laden Valkyriean monster with head nodding and air punching a-plenty. The filthy buckled sewer blues of Scratchin’ and Sniffin’ opens with another tight crunchy bass line before snaking into pure jagged raw heaviness. Its grand façade hides the darkness within, a dirty yelp confessional at the mirrored altar of bleak sinfulness.The Last Run, another live favourite with its ubiquitous cowbell break and lead guitar solo; the latter allowed space by the drums and bass, albeit in a comedy ‘check-the-watch-and-yawn’ pantomime set piece which demonstrates the Shovell’s tongue in cheek attitude towards their own magnificent construct. Killer Kane, the vinyl’s end piece is a slice of idiosyncratic NWOBHM ,harking back to Murders in the Rue Morgue era Maiden , but with enough balls and nous to be pure Shovell. A filthy guitar solo is the set piece within this glorious deranged riffing and enthralling stop start show piece. Black as night!

I know this record has reaffirmed many rock fans faith in a genre long thought stale and tired. I fucking love this band and to use an overused cliché,….they keep it real. This band are real!

Don’t Fear It..…Just Fucking Buy it!!