Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes

Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes (Carter’s long-time ally and Head Snake Dean Richardson) ‘look’ angry, ink skin-marked to a dry inch and affecting the kind of confrontational stares that strike fear into the hearts of the meek and tears into the bones of the weak. That’s weakness as a positive, weakness as awareness, weakness as knowing.

Never judge a book etc. these barking hellhounds bite with a different set of teeth. The reality is they are hardcore with soft centres. Slowly evolving from the pent-up punks of their youth they have emerged as skilled pop-songsmiths in the vein of Alex Turner. Toning down the polemics and turning up the anthemics. Mildly, mind, there’s still a serrated edge to the songs on fifth album ‘Dark Rainbow’.

Their punk past is infused with rock operatics and synthesised cinematics with Carter’s observed vexations gently imported rather than energetically exhorted. A calmer sutre.

‘Honey’ is a pitch-perfect all-out rock riffing. A clumping clip round the earlobes to get things underway.

‘Man of the hour’ and ‘Can I take you home?’ ooze and bruise with the arms aloft euphorica of the Manic Street Preachers, similarly sensitive outsiders attuned to the emotions of attentive insiders. The former is a self-reflexive sermon to recognise (and aver from) the tempting trappings of success and the pitfalls of pomposity. Veer close to the edge, but never go over it. The latter is a MORish power ballad that almost flirts with –but avoids – melodramatic mawkishness.

‘American Spirit’ channels Ian Astbury and The Cult’s shamanic gothic-rock and soul-searching. The brooding ‘Brambles’ crawls in with Carter seemingly having an internal tussle over the true nature of a love affair before it crashes out with a clarifying clarion call of ‘I need love’.

Dark rainbow: the immediate period after the downfall and the returning sunlight seeks to cast its replenishing rays upon the palsied prism of programmed human perception. A fitting metaphor for this album.

Maturity suits them. Neither banishing their past nor treading water this is a rich and creative step-forward that will undoubtedly irk the purist yet jerk the jurist. This is who and what they are now. Creating quality adult disorientated rock for times of trial and (t)error.