Angelic Upstarts: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place / Two Million Voices – Double Album review

Angelic Upstarts: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place / Two Million Voices

(Captain Oi!)

2CD available here

Out now

Nathan Brown listens to the second and third albums by Angelic Upstarts, re-released as a double CD set by Captain Oi!

The Angelic Upstarts had exploded onto the world in 1978 with a self released single and onto the nation’s TV screens in 1979 after they signed to Warner Brothers. Founders Thomas “Mensi” Mensforth on vocals, Raymond “Mond” Cowie on guitar and bassist Steve Forsten were joined by new drummer “Sticks” Warrington for their first raucous album Teenage Warning. Produced by Jimmy Pursey, it saw the band spend 7 weeks in the national chart, and was packed with killer tunes alongside versions of their first 3 singles.

Disk 1 – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

The same line up recorded a rapid follow up in We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. It kicks off in fine style with the razor guitar and singalong chorus of Never ‘Ad Nothin’. It’s up there as one of the Angelic Upstarts’ finest moments and this 1979 single is the first of 3 to feature on this album. It is quickly followed by a new recording of Police Oppression – the B side of their first single The Murder of Liddle Towers. It’s another song based round a fast riff and singalong chorus. Police harassment of punks was in full swing so it obviously struck a chord.

Even at a young age I found Lonely Man of Spandau a little confusing, albeit a song with a great hook in the chorus and a classic Upstarts sound in the power and melody. I mean, Hess was one of the architects of the Third Reich. Why should anyone pity him rotting in prison? Mensi would go on to become a spokesperson for Anti-Fascist Action, number 1 on Combat 18’s hit list of “reds” to target, and was out on the street fighting Nazis right up until the covid lockdown. It’s a song that would be thrown back in Mensi’s face in later years by keyboard warriors.

Their Destiny Is Coming is another solid offering with a trademark Upstarts chorus, followed by Shotgun Solution, which was the B side to the Out Of Control single, also featured on the album. King Coal is a tribute to the fate that the band members escaped – working down the pit – and is decorated with a couple of soaring solos from Mond. Out Of Control was the second single off this album and is another of those Upstarts songs that rightly deserved its single release as it rises above the rest. It’s definitely among my favourites, and has that uncanny ability to make you want to pogo round the room as soon as it kicks in. It’s in keeping with the general 2 fingers to society aesthetic of the first album and early singles but the band had honed their craft by now to come up with an absolute killer that ramps up the tension before it explodes.

Ronnie Is A Rocker is in the spirit of so many first wave punk songs, taking a rock’n’roll standard approach and speeding it up. They even get some Jerry Lee Lewis meets Chas’n’Dave piano into the mix, allegedly provided by Jim Reilly of SLF. Listen To The Steps is a lively affair for a sombre subject of capital punishment with it’s jovial chorus of “The hangman is coming”. Can’t Kill A Legend, starts with a catchy Mond guitar line which repeats throughout. Little did Mensi know when he sang “Legends don’t die. They go on forever” that he would become a legend in his own life time. As the song says, his legend continues to this day.

Capital City starts with a very Clash City Rockers style riff but of course has an Upstarts chorus. An attack on London, there’s a dubious line which could have been misunderstood as xenophobia: “The place is filled with foreigners
It’s not for you and me”. That line, the hangman song and Lonely Man of Spandau was disturbingly close the politics of the NF but any doubts would be settled on their next album.

The title song that closes the record, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, is one proud North East band’s rendition of another’s (The Animals). 15 years later, the region was still seeing similar issues and the song still spoke to a younger generation. Somehow the Upstarts managed to make it sound like one of theirs with the heavy drumbeats, the crowd chorus and a blistering solo. It’s recognisable without being naff which can be the unfortunate fate for some punk covers.

For this CD collection, the album is supplanted with 3 bonus tracks. Nowhere Left To Hide, the B side of Never ‘Ad Nothing sits alongside the single version of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place and it’s B side, Unsung Heroes Part II. The single was released a month before the LP, at a time when singles sold LPs.

Disk 2 – Two Million Voices

After We Gotta Get Out Of This Place it was “That’s All Folks” to Warner Bros and Angelic Upstarts signed to EMI’s Zonophone imprint. Within a couple of months they had released a new single: Last Night Another Soldier. Along with the singles England and Kids On The Street, it built up a head of steam before featuring on 1981’s Two Million Voices, which is the focus of the second CD.

Following two albums that were visceral punk rock rebellion, Two Million Voices was a more political album, setting up a blueprint for future Angelic Upstarts output. If you had any doubts about where their politics lay they were clear on this outing. Musically they branched out as well, focusing more on melody than power to carry their messages. Folk and reggae influences were adopted and a saxophone was introduced to a sound which at times seemed less acerbic – perhaps to be more pop chart friendly. Mensi and Mond had the services of Glyn Warren on bass and both Paul Thompson and original member Decca Wade on drums through this album.

Opening number Two Million Voices creates momentum from the get go with the snare rolling into a bouncing bass line and a football terrace chorus. It is one of the stand out songs of the album. The Two Million Voices of the title was the number of people on the dole when the album came out. Mass unemployment and the de-industrialisation of the North East was the background to 1981 and a primary concern of this album. Little did they know it would get far worse. Next up, Ghost Town focused on the impact of Thatcher’s policies (“Thanks very much Margaret”) on steel towns, in particular the town of Consett. It switches between open chord first wave punk and a sax driven reggae break down. The 3rd song of the album, You’re Nicked, shows they had lost none of their contempt for the police and is littered with saxophone.

The tempo steps down with the acoustic start of England. This folk inspired ballad expounds the love of their homeland before getting a bit schmaltzy as the other instruments join the song. It was the 80s so give them a break. The patriotism in this song would always confound the far right nationalists that Mensi fought over the years.

In keeping with the overall theme of the album, Heath’s Lament was a poetic exploration of trade unions and strike breaking in Geordie dialect. They may have been socialists, but the Upstarts were no fans of authoritarian state socialists, singing the praises of the people resisting the Russian invasion in the lumpy mid-paced Guns For The Afghan Rebels.

Another of the outstanding songs on Two Million Voices, I Understand, was a moving roots reggae tale of the death of a young rastafarian in prison. “19 Years old what an age to die. Ashford is a prison where they hide a lie. Richard Campbell were you mad? Or just a bit insane?”. The band had clearly been paying attention and managed to play their reggae more convincingly than some of the white cod-reggae proliferating the charts at the times. A switch of mood sees Mensi’s Marauders enjoy a fun upbeat folky number about life on tour, led by a fiddle years before the Levellers and the Cropdusters were at it. Mr. Politician displays absolute contempt for the people overseeing the destruction of the country. At times the music under the diatribe is reminiscent of SLF’s Fly The Flag, although it nearly falls apart, getting a tad disjointed.

Kids On The Street is in the running for top song of the album. As I wrote in my review of The Singles 1978-85, Kids on the Street is an anthemic highlight of the Upstarts’ back catalogue. The pounding bootboy stomp on the drums and the big guitar downstrokes celebrated the sort of people who the Angelic Upstarts lived to play for: the Geordie kids (of course), Belfast kids, Birmingham kids and Glasgow kids. Another soaring Mond middle eight carried a message of unity borrowed from anti-racist demonstrations “All you kids black and white, Together we are dynamite”.

Jimmy is standard Upstarts fare but not too memorable and sounded a little like a cut and shut in places. A poppy treatment is given to We’re Gonna Take The World which explores themes the band would return to: solidarity and freedom. I can hear the beginnings of their 1983 song Solidarity in the melody.

Last Night Another Soldier is yet another highlight of the album that saw the waste of working class lives in military service. It is something that particularly affected de-industrialised areas with low job prospects, and still does. Although there is no specific mention, at the time the occupation of Ireland was constantly in the news and the cover image looked like a Belfast street. The country was polarised over whether troops should be there or not. The Upstarts were looking at it from a different perspective than most. Considering it concerns death it’s really quite an upbeat happy sounding number.

A pairing with Last Night Another Solider, I Wish finishes the album with a whistful piece led by the piano, hoping for a peaceful future and for freedom. “No soldiers, no colours of orange and green” plants this firmly in Ireland with wise words:
“Don’t follow the leader just think for yourself.
Maybe the children can live a real life
Free from all the trouble and strife”

Bonus tracks on this CD provide the B-sides to the singles on the album. The Man Who Came In From The Beano – an ebullient slab of Upstarts Oi! with a melodic singalong chorus and drum build ups – was the opposite number to Last Night Another Soldier in July 1980. Sticks Diary was the B side of the single release of England in Nov 1980, taking the piss out of their departed drummer. The B side of Kids on the Street (Jan 1981) was The Sun Never Shines, a very old school Upstarts style number with a touch of Sham 69 influence and an archetypal uplifting Mensi/Mond chorus.

Never Come Back is another well played reggae track that has shades of SLF on Nobody’s Heroes. It backed up the single version of I Understand which is also included here, and came out around the same time as the album. Jake Burns was credited as providing backing vocals on I Understand so presumably he is among the voices on this number too. Hearing I understand for a second time is no bad thing.

The artwork in the booklet gives a snapshot of the original record covers and middle labels along with a few gig tickets and posters. Mensi leering into the camera backed by the rest of the band on the rear cover of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place is such a great pic.

Not just a trip into nostalgia, these albums demonstrate what a great songwriting partnership Mensi and Mond had. They were responsible for the bulk of this output. The Angelic Upstarts were capable of power, anger and passion.
They are also reminders of our collective loss when Mensi was taken by Covid. It makes me want to dig out their earlier and more recent work and completely immerse myself in the Upstarts – especially what would turn out to be their last album, the superlative Bullingdon Bastards.

Available from Captain Oi!

~

Words by Nathan Brown. His Louder Than War author archive can be found here.