ALBUM REVIEW: CABBAGE ‘THE EXTENDED PLAY OF CRUELTY’
Cabbage are set to release The Extended Play of Cruelty on August 25th on CD, cassette and 10” vinyl via Infectious (Alt-J, DMA’s, Drenge). The EP is already available digitally, and is their comeback release after some potentially damaging allegations were made against the band’s frontman, Lee, earlier this year.
While reviewing the EP, I couldn’t help but get distracted by the elephant in the room. I felt as though I had to address the allegations made before delving into the music. At Cabbage’s London show supporting Kasabian back in April, Lee was accused of grabbing his genitalia and rubbing his hand in the face of a girl who was attending the gig with her father. The news ignited a wild fire on various social media platforms, and all sorts of people condemned Lee and the band for the incident. When I first heard about the allegations, as a female who regularly attends gigs, I was shocked, appalled and saddened. I would be lying if I said that my attitude towards Cabbage and their music didn’t change, because it did. I didn’t listen to the band properly for a while, and only started regaining my confidence in them after reading their interview with Louder Than War, regarding the situation.
The issue of sexual assault on anyone at concerts – or anywhere else in the world – is a very serious one, and it desperately needs to be addressed by bands, promoters and audiences. After reading Cabbage’s interview, it seems to me that the band have addressed the issue after what happened. They state that they contacted the father of the girl, who has confirmed that there was no assault made to his daughter of any kind that evening; he was annoyed about Lee coming so close to the railings and near to the audience at an all-ages concert. The band have also described how they contacted the female who tweeted the accusation originally and asked her to discuss the situation, but that she did not reply. The band talk at length about the situation, and Lee mentions how he arranged a meeting with Safe Gigs For Women, who he had an ‘in-depth conversation’ with. See the interview in full here: http://louderthanwar.com/cabbage-interview-ltw/.
If we see anything that looks remotely suspicious or inappropriate at a gig, or anywhere, then it is our duty to act on it in the best way we can, whether that be directly intervening, or by reporting it. Safe Gigs For Women and Girls Against have a shared aim of trying to create a safer space for women at concerts, and their work is remarkable.
Through meeting up with one of the spokeswomen for Safe Gigs For Women, Lee’s action expresses that bands are feeling a growing responsibility to look after the people who go to their gigs, and I hope that other bands take influence from this action.
Cabbage’s EP is a different breed to their previous releases. With a less harsh, hard-hitting sound, it seems that instead of creating loud, thrashing noises, Cabbage are concentrating on how they lyrically represent the issues they are tackling.
The first track from The Extended Play of Cruelty is entitled ‘Celebration of a Disease’. The tune comments on the tasteless – at times – ‘lad’ culture that has infected the Internet (note LADBible, UNILAD and Humor LAD). The video that the band worked on with Dom Foster is a Mad Hatter’s tea-party trip, with grotesque clips of food consumption and piñata-playing. The instrumentation on this song is less brazen than Cabbage’s previous offerings. The likes of ‘Uber Capitalist Death Trade’ and ‘Dissonance’ ensued more chaos than this opening track. Chaos is a word that the band are relatively familiar with – their live shows are hectic, with even the notoriously ineffectual London crowds going berserk over their mind-bending sets. ‘Celebration of a Disease’ is slow and sinister, and much more akin to sounds that Fat White Family make than the classic punk bands who Cabbage have been more commonly compared to. Nevertheless, it remains a toe-tapper, and I can imagine their fans moshing along to it as if they really were at a Dead Kennedy's show.
‘Fraudulent Artist’ makes me turn the volume dial up a notch. The crunching, scuzzy guitars are piercing and are only drowned out by the maniacal vocal. ‘A Network Betrayal’ is a rant about rail privatisation. The lyrics are cunning in this track. Expect typical-turns-cynical Train Inspector announcements like, ‘”Please have all tickets and travel documents ready for inspection, bow down to my presence and just so you know, I’ve got a CCTV camera strapped to my chest and I’m not afraid to use it!”’ Oh! And the cymbal smacks sound just like trains as they clunk and rattle along the tracks. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not…
‘Ertrinken’ has a long, melodic introduction followed by a repetitive mantra, ‘I kept my feet on the ground, I’ll hold you down till you drown, drown, drown’. This track is a bit like eating cabbage – not the best part of the plate, but it gets you to the next stage, maybe the meat, or the Yorkshire pudding? Who knows, but the next stage for The Extended Play of Cruelty is ‘Asa Morley’. It’s a screwball illustration of the band’s real-life drummer, Asa. In the first few seconds of the song, he’s referred to as a ‘Football Manager’, and things just get even more bizarre after that.
Overall, The Extended Play of Cruelty bodes well for the future of the band. ‘Fraudulent Artist’ and ‘A Network Betrayal’ are shoe-stompers, and will be received as such at their upcoming festival dates. ‘Asa Morley’, a fast, frantic, ferocious high point of the EP will stand as a definite contender next to fan favourites like ‘Uber Capitalist Death Trade’ and ‘Gibraltar Ape’ at their forthcoming Healing Brexit Towns Tour.
Article By Alicia Carpenter
Originally published on Rank Zine - http://www.rankzine.co.uk/album-review-cabbage-the-extended-play-of-cruelty/