Crisis – Revenge Is Sweet (Album + Single – Steelwork Maschine)
Genre/Influences: Punk, Punk-Rock.
Format: CD + Vinyl.
Background/Info: This album brings us back to the 70s; the glorious days of Punk and Crisis claimed they ‘ceased to exist in the diving embers of Punk in 1980’. Two of their members, Tony Wakeford and Douglas Pearce, set up Death In June after the split of Crisis. They both also worked together with Boyd Rice and Wakeford got also involved (among others) with Sol Invictus. “Revenge Is Sweet” is a selection of Crisis’ songs.
The compilation was released in 2022 by the French label Steelwork Maschine, which issued it on CD, on 7″ vinyl including a picture-disc pressing, and on cassette.
Content: You clearly and rapidly will recognize the Punk/Rock spirit from the late 70s while the lyrics were also very political. Crisis clearly was against racism, fascism ao which they explicitly expressed through the lyrical content. The album features 14 songs and the single 3 cuts which are still featured on the album.
+ + + : This work is history and a collector’s item for all fans of Wakeford and Pearce. The short track reflects the true spirit of 70s Punk movement although Crisis was much more than simply Punk, but also Rock and even Dark-Wave. I also like the artwork of the album featuring a cool booklet with black & white pictures from that period.
– – – : I can’t affirm Crisis was an essential Punk formation but the founding members got fame by their next projects.
Conclusion: This work sounds like total nostalgia and it was fun getting back to some of the band’s most essential songs.It’s a pity the single doesn’t contain extra songs next to the album.
Best songs: “PC 1984”, “Alienation”, “UK 78”, “On TV”.
Rate: 7.
Label: www.steelwork.fr / www.facebook.com/pages/Steelwork.Maschine
About Crisis
Crisis is an English punk band formed in 1977 in Guildford, Surrey. The first line-up was Phrazer on vocals, Lester Jones on lead guitar, Douglas Pearce on guitar, Tony Wakeford on bass and Insect Robin the Cleaner on drums. The band was openly left-wing and anti-fascist, and played at Rock Against Racism and Anti-Nazi League rallies and at Right to Work marches.
Action Group Records released the debut single “No Town Hall” in 1978. The band recorded four tracks for a BBC Radio 1 Peel Session on 11 January 1978; two of them appeared as the “UK 79” 7″ on Ardkor in 1979, and the two remaining songs were issued by Ardkor as “Alienation” in 1981. Ardkor also released the mini-LP “Hymns of Faith” in 1980, and the “Holocaust – U.K.” 12″ EP followed in 1982. In early 1979 Phrazer and Insect Robin the Cleaner were replaced by Dexter and Luke Rendle. The band played its last show on 10 May 1980 in Guildford, supporting Magazine and Bauhaus, and split up; a recording of that concert was released as “Ends!” in 2008.
Pearce and Wakeford formed Death In June in 1981. Wakeford left that band in early 1984, formed Above the Ruins and later the neofolk band Sol Invictus. Rendle joined the Straps and then The Pack and Theatre of Hate, while Jones formed Carcrash International. The Crisis catalogue was compiled as the double CD “We Are All Jews and Germans” on World Serpent in 1997, as “Holocaust Hymns” on Apop Records in 2005 and as the vinyl set “Kollectiv” on La Vida Es un Mus in 2014.
Wakeford started the ensemble 1.9.8.4. in 2015 to perform songs he had written for Crisis and Death In June, and renamed it Crisis in 2017, with Lloyd James of Naevus on vocals, Clive Giblin of Alternative TV on guitar and Igor Olejar on drums; Aurora Lee took over on drums in mid-2018. That line-up released the “The Hammer and the Anvil” 7″ in 2019 and the “Escalator” 12″ EP in 2020, ahead of the Steelwork Maschine compilation reviewed here.
I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
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