Album Review: Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine - "Tea Party Revenge Porn"

 

It's certainly true to say that the current political climate is ripe for a Jello Biafra album. Tea Party Revenge Porn was due to come out this month but due to the elections across the pond, Jello pushed it forward a few weeks. Given the terrifying events in Washington in recent weeks, one wonders if there's a follow-up EP in the works as we speak...

Whatever the situation, it's clear right from the anti-Trump diatribe Satan's Combover that Biafra is on good form here with his references to "Making racism great again" and the Holiday in Cambodia style scream of "TWEET! LIE! TWEET! LIE!" towards the end.

While many of Biafra's contemporaries have either grown old and toothless by bowing their heads before the marketing Mammons (John Lydon, Iggy Pop) or are simply gone from this world (Joe Strummer, the Ramones), Jello is still out there raging with, if anything, even more fury than when he first burst on to the scene as the '70s turned into the '80s. Here he ferociously savages everything from anti-vaxx/5G conspiracy nuts (People With Too Much Time On Their Hands) through mobile phone gazing zombies (Let's Go Stare At Bloody Dead People) to the odious "me first and pull up the ladder afterwards" mentality that we're depressingly seeing ever more of on both sides of the Atlantic (The Ghost Of Vince Lombardi and the Stranglers-esque Last Big Gulp)

It's not just a one man show either as the Guantanamo School of Medicine show that they're an incredibly versatile backing band as evidenced on the anti-imperialist diatribe We Created Putin which goes from full on punk assault to an almost Fiddler On The Roof gone dub mid-section or the rumbling almost cowpunk guitars on the self-explanatory Stop Taking Selfies.

Signing off with two well-placed boots in the nether regions of the small-minded MAGA brigade in Taliban USA and the title track, this is the sound of Biafra making a triumphant return after six years away and reclaiming his ground in superb style. Welcome back Jello. Fuck knows we need you right now. 

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 (9/10)

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