Subhumans - The Day The Country Died

SUBHUMANS -

THE DAY THE COUNTRY DIED

For the Subhumans, an important signifier as to where England was at was the inner city riots of 1981, the subject of which they chose to name their début LP after. Released on the Spiderleg Records label, The Day The Country Died was a welcome return to former glory, picking up from the point at which they had first exploded into existence with their Demolition War EP.

Delivering sixteen songs of churning, spinning, speeding Punk urgency, from beginning to end the album simply bounced with excitement. The album's title came from the song Black And White and though not explicitly mentioning the riots of '81 by name, it was clear what it was that was being referred to: "Enquiries - but no solutions, faceless - empty illusions. Reasons - are always pushed aside, remember - the day the country died."

On the album's cover, a cartoon image of a spiky-haired Punk Rocker being shot through the head - molotov cocktail in hand - is superimposed over images of police, war, mobs, missiles and newspaper front pages boasting riot news headlines. Without overstating it, the summer of '81 was obviously of meaning to the Subhumans.

When listened to over the length of a whole album it was apparent that the Subhumans were continuing to perform the neat trick of avoiding being pinned down and categorised, and it seemed to be all down to Dick Lucas's lyrics. Whilst the music was a turbo-charged flurry of rushing, thrashing guitar, bouncing bass and snapping drums; in amongst the words were politics, wry observation, social comment, humour, and even poetry: "There's a hole in the bottom of the world where the blood pours out at the end of the day. When the usual amount of people have died, sit back and watch the death and decay - it's a dying world."

Whilst being fully immersed in the by now recognisable mores, activities and practises of the Anarcho Punk scene and whilst being quite capable of seriousness when it came to serious subjects, what differentiated the Subhumans from the rest of the Anarcho Punk pack was Dick Lucas's almost cartoon-like sense of humour. Liberally lacing his songs with comic asides and noises, he could also pen whole songs that read like madcap comedies: "Oh what a great experience my house is full of deviants, my Dad is going mad downstairs, my brother has just dyed his hair. We got Punks and drunks and thrills and pills and lots of things to make your head go round. It's fun fun fun fun fun til the pigs come round."

In one of the longest songs on the album, entitled Mickey Mouse Is Dead, the irreverence in his lyrics is highlighted when he turns the Crass peace chant of '1, 2, 3, 4 - we don't want your fucking war' into a more comically stupid chant of "1, 2, 3, 4 - look what you done to Mickey Mouse."

Though the subject matter of many of the songs was quite morose, the saving grace was in the way that Dick sounded as if he was thoroughly enjoying himself. In the face of doom and gloom the Subhumans were having fun, no better conveyed than in the track No More Gigs, in which Dick depicts a depressing scenario for his band: "In a smoke-filled room, 'How's it going then?'. 'It's not going at all, we got no more gigs'." But even here Dick turns depression on its head and makes a celebration of it: "A bottle of gin, a packet of cigs. Sing, brother, sing - we got no more gigs."

Despite being undeniably supportive of Anarcho Punk ideas, right down to having the 'pay no more' demand on their record sleeves, the Subhumans were far less intense about it than most of their Punk peer group. And unlike most of the other bands of the Anarcho persuasion, they only had one real message to impart and a very simple one at that. A single word message as written all over the inner sleeve of their album: 'Think.'