ALBUM REVIEW: Crashed Out – Against All Odds (Demons Run Amok Entertainment)
Crashed Out are a fourpiece from Jarrow in North East England who have been making top-notch working class punk rock ‘n’ roll since 1995.
This is their sixth full-length album, penned during the lockdown of 2020/21, and it’s head and shoulders the best of their career.
I’d heard maybe half a dozen of these songs live since we were allowed out to attend gigs again, and been impressed by what I’d heard. What I hadn’t reckoned on was the sheer quality of the whole album, which is all-killer, no-filler.
If you’ve seen or heard Crashed Out you might think you know what they’re all about; lots of punk attitude with street-tough vocals from Chris Wright, big riffs and singalong choruses. There’s plenty of all those here – and a lot more besides.
This album hits the ground running with defiant title track Against All Odds, and Urban Zoo (about being ignored by the music industry because of where you’re from) immediately steps things up a notch.
Guitarist Lee Wright lets loose with some heavy metal soloing on Warchild, whose lyrics are sadly more apt than ever in light of Putin’s crazy invasion of the Ukraine, but could apply to any conflict, anywhere.
The Chancer sees them veer towards Dropkick Murphy territory, with very impressive results, while Leave Him Alone is perhaps the most typical Crashed Out song here (and a distant cousin of old favourite One Of The Boys?).
Work To Live, about the working man’s perpetual struggle to survive, sees Spin wheel out a bassline which The Stranglers’ JJ Burnel would be proud of, while the most unexpected song here is a pumped-up cover of In The City, written by The Eagles’ Joe Walsh for the soundtrack of 1979 gang film The Warriors.
Side one of the vinyl version of the album closes with one of its highlights, The Banks Of The River, a slower number about being proud of where you come from, while being wary of the perils of staying too close to home. It warns “the river will drag you down if you let it, I got out alive,” and sounds like a sequel to one of their best songs, The Town That Died.
Side two opens with A Cry For Help, about people being driven to extreme actions by mental health problems, then Hypocrisy is built around another great bassline from Spin as he and new drummer Ricci drive this song on as much as Chris’s insistent vocals and Lee’s coruscating riffs. Addressing the class divide in Britain today, it’s the angriest song on the album, one of its undoubted highlights, and sounds fucking immense live.
Four Words addresses the fallout of being told a relationship is over, while Hebburn Town celebrates the buzz that something as simple as a successful non-league football club can give to a whole community, and Raise A Toast is about enjoying life to the full and living for the weekend.
The Coat, which brings the album to a close, presents a real change of pace, and one of Chris’s best lyrics, about the horrors of war, told via a note from a First World War soldier found in a junkstore greatcoat.
Crashed Out are absolutely on fire at the moment, and any one of these songs would fit into their always-enjoyable live set. This is a real album of the year contender. Get yours on CD or vinyl at a gig or from the band via their Facebook page HERE. 9/10.
