Album Review: The Hip Priests – Stand for Nothing (Speedowax)

The Hip Priests have been making a racket for a little over a decade with their full-tilt, Scandi-driven rock n roll excess, but the last couple of years have seen them shift their focus away from all-drinking, all-drugging, all-shagging beasts into a singularly more political band, and it works for them.

The Brexit mess that the UK is currently wading through, like a drunken one-legged syphilitic sailor, has brought out the best in this Nottingham 5-piece, sharpening their songwriting skills with real purpose and delivering one of the few obvious musical responses to the political shambles unfolding. All the things you would expect musically remain in their muscular riffs, powerful punk n roll frenetic energy but with added grit and spit.

Heralded with last year’s mammoth 10-minute MC5-like No Time (Like Right Now), the Hip Priests have delivered a true album for the times, focusing their anger in a truly brutal reflection of the state of 2019 Britain and beyond in Stand for Nothing.  With this handful of brutally crafted 3-minute rock n roll nuggets the Hip Priests have unequivocally nailed their colours to the mast and done the opposite of what the album title suggests, making it very clear exactly what they do stand for.

And with song titles such as Welcome to Shit Island, Losers of the Faith and From Here To Adversity, this is the greatest album to sit back, put your feet up, swig a beer and watch the whole shit show unfold. There’s No Time (Like Right Now) to do yourself a favour and pick up a copy.

English Jake