Album Review

The Enemy – (Album Sampler)

• 26th May 2007

The Enemy, quite an aggressive start and a signal of intent from these three working class heroes, who seem to have gone on a round trip to London and Manchester to collect their sound before heading back home to Coventry.

Here we have six tantalizing tastings from the as yet untitled debut album, set for a summer 2007 release. Sure to catapult to the higher reaches of the album charts, and deservedly so!
Raised solidly on a milk bottle full of The Jam and The Clash, they pen anthems for modern man from Job Centres and working men’s clubs, to pubs and indie club dance floors.

The new kings of the crowd rocking sing along, they do big “ohh oohh ehh” harmony led choruses just as well, if not better, than The Futureheads and Co. Every single one of their songs give the Black Death a run for it’s money in the infectiousness stakes! Top class hooks that will embed themselves in your skull, I bet you ten pints you’ll be mumbling “oh way oh way oh oh oh, away from here” to yourself all day at work!
’40 Days & 40 Nights’ is a classic Arctic Monkeys style urban story telling, firmly down to earth with a bump narration of being cheated on. “Boy you’ve got one too many girlfriends for my liking…somebody told me she’s sleeping with the enemy”

‘Away From Here’ is a rousing war cry to the dole munchers and 9 – 5ers. “I’m so sick, sick, sick and tired, of working just to be retired” “much easier for me to stay at home with Richard and Judy”. Like the leaders of a new revolution, guiding their disciples with guitars and megaphones, piloting mass street marches thundering the lyrics and thumping their fists into the air as they descend on disgruntling places of employment, like Joshua on the walls of Jericho.

Nodding like a plastic bulldog on a parcel shelf to The Killers ‘Midnight Show’ when it comes to vocal melody, ‘Dancing All Night’ is sure to drop in DJ booths in Club NME’s the land over. A short but sweet drunken hymn from a night on the tiles.

With the Enemy, it’s simply what you see is what you get. There’s a sack load of swagger and Midlands cockiness, but not without the substance to justify it. They’re just a damn good band with damn good songs. Who needs The Twang f-ing and blinding like Gordon Ramsey with a stubbed toe when you’ve got these geezers? They might be The Enemy but, I tell you what, with enemies like them – who needs friends!