BOXSET REVIEW: Conflict – Statements Of Intent 1988-94 (Mortarhate/Cherry Red Records)
This ‘companion’ to the 1982-87 boxset (reviewed here) gathers together every release by DIY punk scene mainstays Conflict from 1988-1994. Here, we get five albums, plus a couple of tracks from 2 x 7” added as bonus cuts.
Compared to the first boxset, there’s far fewer tracks (61, compared to 123), but what it lacks in quantity is made up for by the quality. I was especially looking forward to hearing three albums which totally passed me by back in the day. And I wasn’t to be disappointed.
When we left Conflict in the previous review, it was 1987 – and the band had been banned from gigging throughout the UK as a result of a riotous assembly following The Gathering of the 5,000 in Brixton, London. The band were at their most ungovernable, Steve Ignorant (ex-Crass by now) had joined Conflict, and the sound they made was hard, in-your-face, aggressive punk.
This collection picks up Conflict in 1988, starting with Disc 1, the ‘original’ (ie. 3 years before Metallica’s) ‘black album’, The Final Conflict. At this point in time, it’s worth remembering, the DIY punk scene was on the verge of collapse. Conflict were getting all kinds of grief (from within the scene and the authorities) and ex-punks had embraced a new age traveller-crusty lifestyle – fighting for the right to party rather than the rights of man and beast.
DIY punk scene imploding
The entire DIY punk scene scene was imploding, the movement had dissolved into a narcissistic, hedonistic circus, with the country facing a new moral panic over convoys of renovated military vehicles, battered caravans and illegal sound systems. A lot of this is evident throughout The Final Conflict, as the band (with hindsight) seem to be giving a two-fingered salute to a (political and music) scene on its last legs, with Conflict wanting to have the last word on the matter.
Listening to this album in 2021, it feels as though Conflict went from (in boxing terms) a raging bull (1982-87) to a rope-a-dope heavyweight with this release. The righteous haymakers of the first boxset have been replaced with a more defensive position, the band against the ropes, soaking up all the jabs, hooks and body blows sent in their direction. You can hear all this (in the lyrics and the sound) in many of the tracks throughout the album, in which Colin Jerwood spits back blood and curses from their corner – with added verbal venom and oral contempt hurled out by his ‘second’, Steve Ignorant.
Message of defiance
Check out all the lyrics to the title track for example. Pay close attention to its message of defiance (to all) contained in the clever lyrics that close the song by using titles of Conflict’s earlier releases as a commentary on the state of the DIY punk scene at that time (‘The house that man built stills stands strong / The Centro Iberico’s now defunct / A nation of animal lovers coincide / With the stupid bastards who help EMI / Turning rebellion into money / It’s time to see who’s who / But the serenade is dead / This is not enough, so the battle continues / We increased the pressure from protest to resistance to the ungovernable force / The Final Conflict. Our war of words’).
TFC is an impressive and much under-rated album. It documents the DIY punk scene, reflects late ’80s politics and is definitely one of the band’s most musically varied releases at this point in their history (check out the reggae rant These Things Take Time, the brass and sax used on several tracks, and The Clash funk-sounding Radio Trash).
Many of the songs involve Jerwood-Ignorant duets, shotgun rants delivered in speeds that excel those on To A Nation of Animal Lovers, and containing lyrics that are still as relevant now as they were then. The best tracks are I Heard A Rumour (superb chorus), The Cord is Cut (brutal!), The A-Team (in which Ignorant does a monologue in the style of Bond villain) and the closing The Final Conflict, a song of three parts with clear Conflict and Crass influences in each section.
Disc 2 is the album Against All Odds. The boxset notes say this was recorded at the same time as TFC, and was meant to be a freebie (but Jungle Records wouldn’t finance that). Although it was released in 1989 and contains material from the same recording sessions as TFC, you’d be forgiven for thinking this material wasn’t Conflict at all. Having heard it for the first time for this review, this album is a complete surprise package.
It contains material that is musically like nothing Conflict had ever released previously (or subsequently!!). Overall, it’s more experimental (understatement of the year?), with the band playing around with many different musical styles (folky punk, spoken word, some goth-type guitars, some d-beat, some three-chord thrash, some orchestral gunfire) as Jerwood and Ignorant alternate between vocals, screams, rants and poetic monologues.
A message to who?
Sections of Slaughter of Innocence has a distinctively Discharge (d-beat) style to it – that makes me wonder (given Conflict’s past form) if this is the band throwing an angry right hook in the direction of those that headed to a glam Grave New World back in ’86? (Maybe not). Assured Mutual Destruction and The Greatest Show on Earth are two songs that took me completely off my guard. If you haven’t heard them – then be prepared for, spoiler alert, some ….. erm …. punk rock cabaret?
Things return to some kind of Conflict-normality with A Message To Who, which comes across as a return to their 1982 young ruffian selves, but with added riffs. A State of Mind closes the album – and this seems like an obvious piss take of the nomadic ‘party scene’ at that time, with its vaguely Macarena-sounding backbeat and obvious references to drug-related lingo. I doubt the band intended to create a complete earworm with this specific track – but they did, as in 2021, I CAN’T GET THE ANNOYING AND GRATING BACKBEAT OUT MA DAMN HEAD (Heeeeyyyy Macarana).
Against All Odds is a truly remarkable album and a genuine work of art for so many reasons – but I could never imagine Conflict playing much (if any) of this album live back in the late ’80s/early ’90s – and even less so in 2021. But. Imagine that. A ‘Conflict play Against All the Odds’ post-Covid tour …… I’d definitely go to that. It would be awesome to see Jerwood and Ignorant team up again to do this album live. Disc 2 closes with a reminder of what Conflict do – best … angry abrasive noise, with an even faster (?) and more saxed-up (sic) remix of The Final Conflict.
With Disc 3, Conclusion, we are fast forwarded into 1993. In the intervening four years, not only did Conflict seem to take a break from recording, but with this release re-appear with an almost completely different line-up (with Steve Ignorant no longer in the band). Not only that, but the Conflict sound seems very different to pre-Against All Odds, with an extra level of musical experimentation.
This time experimentation involves synths, keyboards and orchestral arrangements. These changes are apparent from track one, the instrumental To Live In Hearts, and continue throughout most of the album. The addition of keyboards definitely alters things, from Cure-like background tinklings to Cradle of Filth-like orchestral mayhem (their album The Principle of Evil Made Flesh was released around the same time as ‘Conclusion’ … were synthesisers the ‘in-thing’ during the early ’90s? Does anyone remember?), and creates a setlist that sounds more layered, more textured and more … composed than anything they’d done previously.
A declaration of independence
‘Composed’ doesn’t seem to be the best word to describe Conflict, but composed they are, throughout the album. Yes, the rage and contempt is still there (Right To Reply, Declaration Of Independence and These Colours Don’t Run), but there is an underlying tone of ‘goth’ creeping all through the tracks. Not ‘floppy-hats-lipstick-and-patchouli-goth’, but ‘remorseful-melancholic-hopeless-regret-goth’. For examples, check the orchestral doom backing Jerwood’s monologue in the second half of Declaration Of Independence (charting over a decade of political ‘conflict after conflict’ on a global scale), the reflective sadness and helplessness detailed lyrically (and sonically) in the mainly spoken word A Question Of Priorities, and the almost Sisters of Mercy/Moby like keys-intro to Is Never To Die (which also bookends the intro track, To Live On In Hearts Is Never To Die).
But despite these changes, the hard-edged punk riffs and youthful Crass-like sentiments are ever present; see The Institute Of Dreams (complete with brass section) and its condemnation of the patriarchal state of being ‘wedded to another’; the female-led No More Excuses provides an attack on diets/sugar (and in the lyric sheet on the vinyl version you can see that the first word of each line in the second half of the song spells: SACCHARIN CAUSES CANCER) to the rant and roll of the bonus (from 7in single) track that closes this CD, These Colours Don’t Run.
Tale of urban violence
But the best track (musically and lyrically) on this CD is, without a doubt, Climbing The Stairs. Musically, think The Ruts’ Jah War and lyrically think an X-rated blood-splattered version of Staring At The Rude Boys by the same band. But in Conflict’s tale of urban violence, Jerwood takes us through an incident on a stairwell involving blades, blood and boots from the survivor’s point of view, after the event. It’s so heartfelt and graphic that you can only believe it to be based on real events.
Conclusion is another much under-rated Conflict album. It might not be the full-on verbal and sonic assault of days gone by, but it is one of their best in terms of musicianship. It takes a few listens, but hidden under the vocals, lyrics and drums is a range of sounds and instruments (check out those massive drums used in symphonic orchestras during A Question of Priorities) that are not yer average Conflict. Most notable is Paul Hoddy’s bass work in every track, from punk basics to experimental jazz, some bubbling rhythm and slaughtered chords, his range knows no boundaries. Yeah, Conclusion is a Conflict album to listen to, rather than one to shout along to!
Disc 4, In The Venue, is another live set, from 1994, recorded at The Venue in New Cross, South London. This was one of those records that passed me by. 24 tracks made up the setlist from 30 January of that year, and covered the collected works of the band, from early days to Conclusion. It’s a standard live recording of what is a good set, mixing punk-thrash with some punk-reggae and some of the more experimental tracks from Conclusion from a variety of vocalists (mainly Jerwood ).
Although the night out in London all those years ago was a chance for some ‘to see all the old faces from the DIY punk scene again’, In The Venue provides another soundtrack of Conflict’s musical legacy. It’s maybe not the first choice of listening material from the band, but definitely worth comparing alongside Live At Centro Iberico (from the 1982-87 boxset) to see how the band progressed and matured while remaining angry throughout those 14-plus years. As examples, check out the Rage Against The Machine riff mid-set and the reggae-toaster (apologies, no name credited on CD) mashing it during These Things Take Time. These things just didn’t happen back in 1982!
The boxset concludes with a CD version of yet another album that I completely missed. It says here that It’s Time to See Who’s Who Now was re-recorded in 1985 and eventually released in 1994. It features reworkings of 12 tracks taken from the first album and the two singles that were released either side of it (The House That Man Built and To A Nation Of Animal Lovers). From the very start, it sounds a lot heavier, more intense, more abrasive and the vocals seem much clearer than all previous versions (see Great What?, Conflict).
Personally, I think comparing the two different versions of the various tracks is a bit pointless. Both records contain fine material, but each were recorded at different times, the sound evolving and shaping with time. I couldn’t choose between the two if I had to: between the two-finger assault of 1980-83 versus the more hand-crafted 1985/1994?
I heard a rumour
Overall, this 5-disc collection is a complete gem. It’s a collection of Conflict’s least Conflict-like material, shows off their musical variation, lyrical depth and experimentation with style and sound. But if I had one complaint – which applies to both boxsets – it’s the complete absence of lyric sheets (which always accompanied Conflict releases). The lyrical content of Conflict’s discography is as important as the musical content, and many of the lyrics need to be read to be completely understood. This is especially so with this set, and a lot of the material needs to be read (not just listened) to) to be fully appreciated. There’s rumour of a Conflict book; an auto/biography of Jerwood/the band. And that has definitely got to be read – especially if you want to understand Conflict. 9/10.
