The Vichy Government – Carrion Camping (Filthy Little Angels records)

“The Vichy Government”. It’s an odd thing to call your band, isn’t it? What exactly are they trying to convey here; ironically aligning themselves with the machinations of fascist puppet regimes? The symbolic power of Bogart throwing that water bottle in the trash in ‘Casablanca’? Or, like a whole swathe of other current bands who seem to be naming themselves after the less glorious episodes in recent European history (Franz Ferdinand et al..), is this simply a case of kids staring out of the window in history class, dreaming of pop glory with half an ear open for a catchy phrase?

Well after even a cursory listen to this disc, I think it’s abundantly clear that whatever was on these guys minds in history class, pop glory wasn’t it. A welcome kick to the teeth of my half-formed expectations is swiftly delivered, as it becomes clear the Vichy Government are no book smarts yelping post-punk chancers, but instead a Suicide-esque duo featuring an extremely embittered young man of Northern Irish extraction venting his spleen in no uncertain terms over some minimal casio backing.

And spleen-venting is clearly something our boy excels at, taking up the baton from the distinguished lineage of arch-haranguers such as Bill Hicks, Jello Biafra and Lydia Lunch and holding on to the essentials that made those artists so vital – a dedication to dealing with difficult issues at a level of extremity several degrees beyond the comfortable, a mixture of poetry and crudity, wit and intellect and above all an overwhelming expression of disgust and rage directed mercilessly against the whole of human society.

As you might expect, the excruciating business of Irish sectarian politics is first in the firing line, with the VG bravely pulling no punches as they lay into the into the whole wretched, over-sensitive mess on tracks like ‘The Protestant Work Ethic’ and ‘Portmeirion’, the latter a straight up personal attack on a certain politician, bizarrely meshed into a tribute to The Prisoner. Jamie Manners does an excellent job of conveying the suffocating frustration of an intelligent, sensible young person raised amid the prejudice, economic hardship, ridiculous political catch-22s and constant threats of violence found amid those grim housing estates and menacing murals we’re so used to seeing on the evening news. I suppose we should give thanks that the situation across the channel has cooled down to a grey stalemate of mutual dissatisfaction of recent, because I get feeling the Vichy Government would have found themselves the recipients of bullets and beatings all round had they put sentiments as vehement as these on record 15 years ago.

Putting all that aside though, the strongest moments emerge when the VG open up their assault to a wider context, throwing themselves time and again against the bloodless status quo of apathy and creeping social conservatism, mixing enraged litanies of bruised idealism with a venomous sarcasm worthy of the Dead Kennedys. "You can put a three time rapist in a second hand suit, but you can’t make him rape right, or think.." begins anti-tabloid/New Labour tirade ‘Rivers of Blood’; "faggots have no place in this land, except for lesbians, they’re ok..". "So just lock them away with their ‘life partner’, give them free abortions to keep them happy, it’ll keep them off the street – now that’s an intelligent approach!" advises the self-explanatory ‘Arranged Marriages’. This stuff just pours out.

What the Vichy Government do is applaudable and necessary all round, but unfortunately ‘Carrion Camping’ still kinda falls short of the cleansing, blood-letting listening experience it needs to be. The problem lies not with the ideas, but with their execution. I haven’t witnessed them on stage, but on record at least, Mr. Manners’ voice lacks the strength or charisma to really do his words justice or to force them into the listener’s consciousness, often lapsing back into the unappealing tones of a common room politics bore. And whilst the other guy’s instrumental conceptions are more than competent, capturing the strange swing and melodic repetition of early Suicide nicely, the reliance on tinny Argos keyboard pre-sets will start to grate on even the most dedicated lo-fi warrior after a while, and the sound lacks the throbbing menace of Martin Rev’s more esoteric homemade creations.

The Vichy Government are definitely a band to be listened to, and the perfect musical expression of that feeling when you open up a newspaper and feel there's just no rational response left except to choke yourself to death with it. It’s just a shame that with this particular recording they lack the means to really push their agenda forward with an appropriate level of sonic force – I gather they’ve recorded another LP since this one, so here’s hoping that builds on the abundant strengths in evidence here and kicks some ass.