So, an old friend of mine (who has been working with, managing and writing about cool bands for the best part of three decades) said to me a few weeks back. “Come and see Crows in Cardiff, you’ll love them”.

“Nah – they’re too Indie for me” I quickly replied.

He even asked me again on the day of the gig, and yet again I replied in the negative.

Then, as I woke the morning after said gig, I found another friend had tagged me in a live video from the gig on social media, only for me to click on it and think.  “Hang on this is actually really really good.”

And, a few quick spins of ‘Beware Believers’ (the London band’s recently released second album) later, and boy oh boy am I regretting my decision.

Why all the fuss you might wonder? Well, this week whilst the world and its dog are all seemingly losing their shit over Wet leg’s new album, Crows have crept out of leftfield with next to no media fanfare and have released one of the albums of 2022.

Having witnessed the very good The Imbeciles supporting Killing Joke just a week or so earlier I cannot help but think the self-styled Lords of Chaos missed a trick not getting Crows out with them too, because whilst Killing Joke’s flame still burns very brightly indeed Crows are (to my ears at least) the voice of a whole new generation of disaffected UK music fans.

Take ‘Garden of England’ for example, this tune bristles with the spirit of post punk circa 1978-79 and even adds a soupcon of Mr Lydon (In the “England” phrasing) towards the end of the track – yet with its subject matter of a diseased country falling to rack and ruin it is very much 2022.

Elsewhere, the gargantuan ‘Only Time’, the Mark E Smith fronts IDLES drone of ‘Room 156’, the Division Of Laura Lee-like ‘Moderation’ and the truly sublime ‘The Servant’ are all standouts in an album jam packed full of them, and it’s only when the pace (and indeed intensity) drops for album closer ‘Sad Lad’ that I actually get a chance to reflect on the greatness on offer throughout all of the record’s eleven songs.

‘Beware Believers’ is an album I could easily write 10,000 words about, but the litmus test will be you going out and listening to it and loving it too. This is all killer no filler post-punk, and in a rock world seemingly crammed full of lip synching manufactured beige bollocks it’s bands like this that really keep old farts like me interested and excited about the UK scene.

Oh, and Andy, you were right all along… I do love them.

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Author: Johnny Hayward