The Godfathers return with the same clenched-jaw urgency that’s driven them for forty years - less a comeback than a warning.
Going Wrong opens in isolation - “Well here I am alone again / Say hello and wave goodbye” - before locking into its blunt refrain: “We’re going wrong. Going wrong.” This isn’t melodrama; it’s a cold assessment, repeated until it feels inevitable.
Guitars grind, the rhythm section drives hard, and Peter Coyne’s voice remains the band’s sharpest instrument - dry, impatient, and still convincingly pissed off. Lines like “Time is cracked, put the pieces back” sketch a world adrift, where clarity never arrives, and even glimpses of revelation - “a flash of light like a million suns” - overwhelm rather than console.
Flip the record, and Lesbian Café strikes a lighter chord. More melodic and playful, it nods to the LGBTQ scene Coyne grew up around, with guest contributions from Devo’s Josh Hager adding sparky guitar and synth touches. Where Going Wrong diagnoses fractures, Lesbian Café winks - a tribute to resilience and the spaces where misfits thrived.
As the band’s first new music since Alpha Beta Gamma Delta, this double A-side does exactly what it should. Blunt, unsentimental and uneasy on one side, witty and affectionate on the other - the Godfathers remain far more interested in naming the problem or tipping a hat to survival than pretending it’s been solved.
