Album Review: Levellers - "Peace"

 

First album of fully new material from the Levellers in eight years no less, Peace also has quite a bit of rebuilding to do with the once scene-conquering Brighton crusty-rockers. Previous effort Letters From The Underground was another disappointment in a long line of them dating all the way back to 1997's Mouth To Mouth where the quality rot started to set in in this reviewer's opinion. However, having seen the band live at the Beautiful Day Out Festival in Halifax last year, they gave a decent account of themselves which made you think that if they could just transfer that energy to a new album then who knows, they might yet have another good record in them.

So, the $64,000 question - is Peace that album? Well, while it's not up there with their early '90s imperial phase running from Levelling The Land to Zeitgeist, I'll actually stick my neck out and say it's their strongest effort since those halcyon days and a welcome sign that this band have more left to offer than just memories. Food Roof Family and Generation Fear tap nicely into that politicised vein of songwriting that the band once did so effortlessly and the gentle storytelling of Four Boys Lost (based on the tale of four Scottish fishermen who drowned in a loch) shows off their gentler side to good effect as does the more restrained and thoughful polemic of Burning Hate Like Fire.

I think the key factor here is that Peace is the sound of a band concentrating on what they do best and sounding comfortable where previous efforts had a bit of a whiff of a band trying too hard. The calls to arms of Our New Day, Calling Out and The Men Who Would Be King just sound like a band playing with confidence and sounding the alarm bells about the state of the country the way all their best material did while the Riverflow style look back at old days that is Albion and Phoenix and the slow-building closer Our Future show off the more thoughtful side of the repertoire to good effect.

Like I say, this is one of the more unexpected but no less welcome returns to form of 2020 as the Levellers have delivered their strongest album in many a year. Angry, focused and with something to say yet at the same time the sound of a band playing with confidence and concentrating on their strengths, this is a damn good effort and well worthy of attention for those fans who've stuck with the band and those such as myself who might have lapsed a bit.

You can download or stream Peace from the Levellers Bandcamp page (bear in mind that the version on there is the £20 video version though so for those just looking for an audio version you might want to go to the band's main website or similar).

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)