Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes - Modern Ruin (Album Review)
Monday, 23 January 2017
Written by Alec Chillingworth
“I hate you and I wish you would die,” sang Frank Carter as he charmed his way into the public’s hearts and secured a Top 20 album with ‘Blossom’. His debut with the Rattlesnakes afforded the former Gallows vocalist something of a blank canvas and upon it he splattered blues, rickety punk and lots of words beginning with ‘f’ and ending with ‘uck’.
So to open ‘Modern Ruin’ with a heartfelt ode to his dog, Bluebelle, isn’t exactly a rerun of the fittingly-titled ‘Blossom’ opener Juggernaut. It’s more than that. It’s more than an explosive snarl of punk rock. It’s an introduction to Carter’s future and the lead-in to the lethal Lullaby: a sexy, off-kilter mesh of Queens Of The Stone Age and something more sinister masquerading as a pop song.
‘Modern Ruin’ is Carter’s pop album. It is polished but it has bite, like a marble statue of a werewolf. In fact, it’s more of a pop album than Pure Love’s ‘Anthems’ and that was hammered for being too ‘un-Frank’. But it gets away with these rich melodies because it’s just so in line with what Carter’s about. It blends cartoon imagery with the pitch black reality of life.
Vampires takes that blues-rock template, throws some Weezer in there and has guitarist Dean Richardson take things straight into the wild west with some ludicrous spaghetti noodling. Carter’s croon is outstanding throughout, dominating the record and pushing out the harsh screams he’s known for.
And that’s a good thing, because these days he’s a beast of a vocalist. The hook on God Is My Friend is unbelievable, as is the tight-lipped singalong of Wild Flowers. Its ‘70s style punk vocal is the sort that, alongside crisp instrumentation, might make its way onto the radio. It lays down a marker for what pop punk could mean.
But then the title track hits and it becomes clear that the whole album’s been building up to Modern Ruin’s three minute flurry of loose, shouty hardcore. It sits closer to Carter’s Gallows material than anything he’s done since, but here that headline isn’t all that’s going on. It’s just one part of a 12-song collection stacked with near flawless moments: Thunder’s red-raw lyrics, Acid Veins’ bluesy ‘Blossom’ throwbacks or Neon Rust’s militaristic drums.
As the latter’s morbid strings build and play off against Carter’s scream of “You don’t belong in a wasteland,” you realise that’s far more affecting than having him say “You’re a useless fucking cunt, you are nothing to me.” I Hate You was a great song, but Carter’s way more articulate than that. ‘Blossom’ was the primal scream and ‘Modern Ruin’ is the aftermath, the pile of molten rubble that’s left following the complete obliteration of society. It’s dead catchy, though.
Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu March 16 2017 - NORWICH Waterfront Norwich
Fri March 17 2017 - MANCHESTER Manchester Academy 2
Sat March 18 2017 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Riverside Newcastle
Sun March 19 2017 - GLASGOW Saint Luke's
Tue March 21 2017 - BELFAST Oh Yeah music Centre
Wed March 22 2017 - DUBLIN Academy 2
Fri March 24 2017 - LEEDS Leeds University Stylus
Sat March 25 2017 - BIRMINGHAM Asylum
Sun March 26 2017 - CARDIFF Globe, Cardiff
Mon March 27 2017 - EXETER Phoenix Theatre
Wed March 29 2017 - PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood Rooms
Thu March 30 2017 - LONDON KOKO
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