Lee and the Glory Fires have skipped labels and now find themselves on revered label SubPop. They’ve also souped up their sound, mixing in some of the MC5’s fire with those hot damn southern riffs. They are finding a definite style that will bleed over into their next album, a bigger pinch of Punk Rock is being added to the mixture. 

The result is, this album is bloody ferocious!

Opening song “The Company Man” hangs off a riff equal parts Detroit and Tuscaloosa and concerns itself with Alabaman steel bosses who are “Putting profits in the black with businessmen on Sunday, Monday morning, beating prophets black and blue” the subtext s plain to see. I must sit down with the lyric sheet again and de-cipher more of what’s being said.

And on it goes like that with no let up. The title track compares the current state of the USA to the Reconstruction period after the Civil War; “We Dare Defend Our Rights” points out the irony in the State motto of Alabama; “Flags!”, well I’m sure you can work it out. The only let up you get is the start of “What’s Good And Gone” and final song “Dirt Track” which both verge on laid back compared to what’s gone before, but by the time we hit the chorus the fury is back.

My one difficulty with this album is it sounds bloody terrible! The whole record (this one on luscious Yellow vinyl BTW) is distorted as though everything was turned up to 11 and then they pressed the record button and hoped for the best. Maybe it’s what they were after but it means there are some great songs hiding in there under the mess and the aural mud. 

The Company Man - https://youtu.be/unwBMVXA0UI