Written by: Dave Cantrell

Where do you go and once you get to wherever it is you’ve decided upon where do you turn? I mean, there may – or almost certainly will – be that intriguing dark alley down which the danger of mystery is so seemingly tangible you can swear you can hear it breathe and somewhere back there in its deepest shadows music spills from unseeable sources that floats toward you like a siren song accompanied by scything peels of discordant squall that portends at least a hint – if not a full foreboding – of danger. A few blocks over and across the street the bright blinky lights of Broadway-like productions meant to revel in a golden age that’s been gone for yonks yet still, by some kind of wry magic, pulls the punters who against all odds are – and will seemingly forever be – still drawn to that splashy tried and true that promises at least an hour or two of escape from the slow constant crush of so-called modern life. All of which, some-bloody-how, brings us to one Eric Goulden, better known to the modern-day music hordes as Wreckless Eric and, actually, to be editorially honest, we know how all the foregoing leads to Mr Eric and that’s the simple fact that, one, the sound and style of his particular songwriting fits like a comfy well-worn glove right between both said milieus and, two, it does so with a kind of reassuring aplomb that slots so impeccably between the expected and the not-so that one finds oneself, while listening to the man’s work, in a mindset one might call ‘agreeably (sometimes ecstatically) discomfiting’ which, surely, in terms of how it goes with slightly askew singer/songwriters, is exactly the place to be and here, as if on cue, we find ourselves again with the release of the guy’s fourteenth full-length England Screaming, arriving today, November 21st on the always reliable and always estimable Tapete label.

So, okay, to get it out of the way straightaway, this isn’t in the strictest sense ‘new’ material but instead a reworking of the 1985 album A Roomful of Monkeys (released under the alter ego Captains of Industry, one of Wreckless’s several aliases) that was, shall we say, not exactly favorably received by anyone including the artist himself. Do we care that it’s a remake of sorts? Should you? Not a jot, of course, as, for one, it’s an artist’s imperative and, for two, when the results arrive like a dose of delirium shot straight into one’s pop marrow, how can that possibly matter? It does not, obviously, so let’s dive in to the album at hand where, believe us, the water is fine even as…

…said water is a slight if delightful bit choppy to start, as opening track “Lifeline” kicks off in a way that, even as it sounds quite 2020s indeed in terms of production and dynamics, has an energy driving it – which isn’t even to mention its cheeky freshness – that pulls those of us of a certain vintage back to those wondrous post-Pistols environs wherein the invincible Mr Goulden, with intelligence and verve, charmed our collective socks off. But the real charm here? That would be the inherent – and already implied – timelessness, an impression only girded by the eight gems to come, wherein, as a ferinstance…

…the sudden jump-off of “Home & Away” that quickly unspools into classic career-defining territory which technically should give it ‘album highlight’ bragging rights were it not for the seven gems impatiently lined up behind it. There’s “Playtime is Over,” managing by some kind of magic to come at us in a manner both impetuous and finely-tuned which is arguably, and perhaps precisely, just the blended quality that stands this artist in his singular genre (there is, after all, no one that sounds like him). Following comes the fetching “Lady of the Manor” that finds a way to flow from an opening misterioso feel through a garage-rock hookiness into – inevitably, we reckon – a full-on, plain damn classic chorus before resuming its own journey towards that vaunted ‘album highlight’ territory only to be challenged by all that follows and, for that matter, has preceded. Then, just on a bit…

…”The Lucky Ones” marches forward toward the pop legions with a rhythm and arrangement so engaging it could conceivably lure them towards the hook-laden heaven they – and all of us – dream of in our hook-laden sleep; the penultimate “Our Neck of the Woods” that essays the suburban/ex-urban outskirts of dear Blighty with an accuracy that rather slyly presents as both loving and unflinching and may be this listener’s favorite in what is admittedly a crowded field indeed before…

…the brief, appropriately-titled and unabashedly valedictory “Secret Coda” gentles us out of the coach and into the mid-day daylight, blinking our eyes and hugging our mates. So, yes…

…as I listened through this record there were goosebumps a-plenty arising from that wall of nostalgia that someone weeks away from turning seventy can’t seem to help feeling while in that same context being simultaneously astonished by the extent to which I can listen to England Screaming and feel fully anchored in a joy that only knows this moment right now. And that, my reader friends, is – to use that certain ‘M’ word again – just plain fucking magic.

Ellipsis…out.