Pros: Crass's musical peak, lyrics are thought-provoking and passionately angry
Cons: lyrics are awfully preachy, some songs' reach exceeds their grasp, fecal production values
The Bottom Line: Crass does an album devoted to feminist issues and accidentally plays proficient music. This is their best, tightest and most accessible album, but is nowhere near pop.
The Clash and the Sex Pistols were undoubtedly more popular, notorious, and better in terms of musical quality, but the crusty anarcho-hippie commune who called themselves Crass were far more radical in their politics and made the former groups look and sound like pop music by comparison.
The Clash benefitted from relative musical ability, as did the Pistols (except for Sid Vicious). Crass could barely play stickball and sounded awkward and affrontive even doing that. The former groups had devious managers, major label connections, and big "rawk"-polished albums. Crass only had themselves and sounded like they recorded in an outhouse. These perceived shortcomings were probably closer in keeping with their ultra-leftist politics, which their songs expressed in articulately immaculate detail. They preached and proselytized like Jerry Falwell in reverse, but they made many a good point.
By their third album, Penis Envy, their instrumental proficiency had escalated to the level of a teenage garage band. They learned to make the most of their ugly, marchy, razor-thin sound and decided to do an album almost entirely devoted to feminism and issues that women have to deal with on a daily basis. Their main shouter Steve Ignorant took the week off and their female vocalists, Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre rocked the mic for the entire album. Penis Envy gets a lot of flack for this, since they don't sing purty, but their vocals fit the music better than those of Jeff Buckley or Aretha Franklin.
This album is actually a lot better than it sounds on paper. Many of the songs are catchier and and the riffs are more muscular than their usually tuneless martial grind. The lyrics are extremely intelligent and ballsy (if preachy), laying the groundwork for later riot-grrl groups like Bikini Kill. The driving opener "Bata Motel" deals unflinchingly with sexual assault. "Poison In A Pretty Pill" does the same with emotional abuse.
There's a relative sense of diversity on Penis envy, with mixed results. On the good side, the faux-tropical intro to "Berkertex Bribe" succeeds in transcending punk formulas, as does the viscious wedding music parody on the hidden track "Our Wedding". However, the tape-collage dirge "What The F*ck" just drags, and "Health Surface" sounds like a goofy, inept nod to oompah music.
The best tracks, however, just flat-out rock! The breathless, rock 'n' rolly "Systematic Death" follows a boy and a girl as they grow up and their lives become more and more rooted in systematic societal routines. "Where Next Columbus" is the closest that they ever came to a breakneck hardcore song. Over a speedy bassline and a flurry of guitars, Libertine rants about the great minds in history and the horrors enacted by their mindless, massed followers.
Before Penis Envy, Crass's music was barely competent and their lyrics were more rhetorical. After this, their lyrics became deeper, but their music swung into uglier, more difficult and improvised terrain. Aside from their Best Before 1984 singles compilation, this is the best album that they ever did.
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