Lawnmower Deth – Blunt Cutters
Lawnmower Deth – Blunt Cutters
Cherry Red Records
Release Date: 28/01/22
Running Time: 34:07
Review by Simon Black
10/10
Hailing from my home town of Nottingham, Lawnmower Deth have always had a soft-spot in my blackened heart, ever since my housemate back in the mists of time introduced me to their “Mower Liberation Front / Quack ‘Em All” split album with fellow lunatics Metal Duck in 1989. Given that the average run-time of the LMD tracks on here was one minute and eleven seconds, you can see why they had to find someone else to share the other side of the disk with. These days that’s quite a hard piece of vinyl to track down, but despite the non-existent production values (that got left standing by a four track porta-studio cassette machine I picked up at a car boot sale for a tenner), the daftness still managed to make me laugh and secure their place in my affections from that day since.
This was at a time when Metal was really starting to split into sub-genres properly, as Hair Metal thankfully disappeared up its own arse, and Thrash started to become major label and mainstream. The problem with the latter was that it took itself far too seriously, so enter five chaps from Notts with a shared sense of Punk, Metal and humour for whom the concept of taking anything seriously is simply not going to happen ever and off you go. We got three more full length albums (and I use that term with a large pinch of salt) before the band fizzled out for fifteen years. They probably just nipped out for an egg cob and forgot to come back to be fair though… So bizarrely having come back from the shops in 2008, they have sort of morphed into their own tribute band live ever since whilst slowly warming up to the idea of writing some new tunes. And ‘Blunt Cutters’ is finally with us.
So first off, this is Lawnmower Deth doing exactly what they have always done, but with the benefit of having learned to play a lot more proficiently since 1993 and with some actual honest to god production values. That sound quality contrast is the first thing that strikes you about the record, as this aspect sounds absolutely fantastic, which to be fair they’ve been doing well live for some time. This sounds tight and cohesive, which is quite a considerable achievement given that this was recorded in pieces in various linen cupboards up and down the country during lockdown and reassembled very crisply by Producer Chris Clancy.
This is an older but not necessarily wiser LWM here – gone are the daft stage names of bygone times, with the band content to credit themselves on the record for the first time ever. A band whose sense of humour has grown up from the teenage smut of old to a more wry and subtly sardonic view of the world, of which I can think of no better ode to age in the mosh pit than opener ‘Into The Pit’, which made me laugh so hard on first listen that I nearly choked on my tea. This album doesn’t let up for its eighteen track, is full of turbocharged drums, furious riffage and excessive daftness but without losing the massive nod along sense of energy that they’ve always had live.
There are some changes though stylistically. Let’s face it, not hanging around in the song duration department has always been their stock in trade, but we do have a couple of full length tracks here too, which must have really made video animator Andy Pilkington pass a brick when he realised that single ‘Raise Your Snails’ came in at nearly four minutes in length when he had probably only quoted for the usual ninety seconds of CGI work… (it’s a fab video though, check it out on the link below).
The album closer ‘Agency of C.O.B.’ (and if I have to explain what a ‘cob’ is, you just grew up in the wrong part of the world) is a complete surprise though, because the last thing anyone expected these guys to do was to write the kind of epic conceptual album that sends listeners of so many Power Metal albums right off to sleep. But not as much of a shock as it is to hear actual keyboards here (courtesy of Evil Scarecrow’s Matt Burton) along with Pete Lee actually singing… Which he actually can do by the way, even if he is taking the piss mightily, but it just shows that these chaps should never be underestimated.
We’ve been waiting twenty-eight years for this and Lawnmower Deth absolutely do not disappoint.
‘Raise Your Snails’ Official Video
TRACKLISTING:
01. Into the Pit
02. I Don’t Want To
03. Botheration
04. Swarfega
05. Bastard Squad
06. Now He’s A Priest
07. Good Morning, Phil
08. Bobblehead
09. Raise Your Snails
10. Deth! Maim! Kill!
11. Christ Options
12. Hell’s Teeth
13. Blunt Cutters
14. Space Herpes
15. Nothing But Noise
16. Goodnight, Bob
17. Power Bagging
18. Agency of C.O.B.
LINE-UP:
Chris Billam – Drums
Pete Lee – Vocals
Steve Nesfield – Guitar
Gavin ‘Paddy’ O’Malley – Guitar
Chris Parkes – Bass
LINKS:
