Chain and The Gang – Minimum Rock n Roll (2014)

Ian Svenonius, rock’n’roll radical behind Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Weird War etc. returns with his current outfit, Chain & The Gang, whose fourth album aims not just to restate their disdain for the industrial processing of music, desire to dismantle capitalism and end material monism but to spawn a new genre, ‘crime rock’. Which sounds like a kind of lean, garage-punk blues with anarchic tendencies of a kind definitely not available in Urban Outfitters.


“What are you in here for?” croons Svenonius dolefully; half-welcoming us back into his band’s secret universe, whilst also digging an immaculately-dressed elbow into our ribcages and winking theatrically. Having spent a 30-year career picking at the bones of post-punk, garage rock and yé-yé, the DC icon’s current outfit extricates what sumptuous meat remains and serves it all up with an irresistible gospel glaze. Lucky swine that we are, this fourth LP catches ‘em at their smartest, funniest and most irrepressible.