Kneecap: Fine Art
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Out Now
“The end of art is peace.”
― Seamus Heaney
Kneecap, three multi talented Irishmen, have something to say, and after several singles and a headline-making Glastonbury performance or two, are releasing their thoughts in long-playing form. MK Bennett listens without prejudice.
Performance Art is a tricksy business, giving it meaning usually ends in blood. The idea behind Fine Art, the ideas behind Fine Art, that title and band name included, are an intellectual bludgeon, an amused taunt from the unamused. It dares you to have an opinion before you hear the music, openly enjoying the confrontation. Whether debating the politics would somehow negate the criticism is difficult to know. Political ideology expressed through music requires a sort of righteous anger whether it be Fela Kuti, Crass or Lambrini Girls, whether the righteousness is misguided or missile-guided.
The expectation that they had studied through the lens of Punk is solid enough, even if it’s less a musical influence than an attitude or approach, street clothes exaggerated, differences magnified, codified aesthetics and man-made laws. If this all seems a little obvious then understand that the great enemy of Punk, the concept album is also present and incorrect. Still, it’s a more working-class concept, one night in the history of a pub, with the storyline becoming more frantic as it evolves, it could easily be seen as a reference to every 90s hip-hop album with assorted skits and blackly comic threats of violence.
Every band ever processed through the stereotype of pop and teenage culture has had to use a hook, a carrot, from The Beatles to Public Enemy, a silver bullet to pierce the heart of its audience, and KNEECAP are no different in that respect, except they are mixing recent history with their Sociology, their lifestyle, less reportage, more memoir.
The album cover is a graphic of a balaclava. An item of headwear similar to the gas mask, in that it is a symbol understood almost everywhere and depending on its context will give the viewer a visceral response, a specific memory maybe. It is obvious but it asks questions, and Lenny Bruce was right about this, use the oppressor’s words against them. Subtlety is not as recognizable as it once was in any case, so make the grand statement and the big gesture, it might just be noticed over the noise of modern living.
Track one 3CAG is a fantastic intro, with sirens wailing and what sounds like a snippet of Frank Carson, an old-school Irish comedian of a certain flavour, a handy 70s stereotype. The music that follows is superb, early Massive Attack via tear-stained country pubs, a vision of their future and our past. A beautiful start and probable deliberate surprise, a note to point out that there are no musical limitations. Track Two, Fine Art is modern Grime with a sublime sub bass and supremely catchy “ Get the Brits out/Get Your Brits Out” mid-section, it moves like a rich man’s bank accounts. Slinky like 90s Garage.
Track Three, I bhFiacha Linne relies heavily on a sample of Mancunian genii 808 State’s Cubik, which works well in the context of the lyrics and is also ridiculously danceable, as you would expect. The next single presumably and a hit every day of the week. One of the best openings of any album, its jukebox-like presentation means they can do anything they want. Track Four, I’m Flush is a short and frantic 90s jungle/ Drum & Bass stomper, again with the shouted and chanted chorus, catchy as Chlamydia and fueled by cheap coke, it is a streamlined train, underground but raised by radio.
Track Five, Better Way To Live starts like the Blockheads, a forceful bassline stands alone in the 80s-like backing track while a keyboard plays a melancholy note, it is reminiscent of the stone-cold Dennis Edwards classic, Don’t Look Any Further, no higher praise is possible. Probably the album of the summer, it’s so easy to imagine it playing from the bedroom windows and busted cars of the young and the bored, estate kids who dress like the band, looking for their own hook, that itch to escape, the sick feeling of lack of food and money, lack of hope, a cold boredom that seeps into your skin until you will do anything to get out. Get out of your head, your life, at least for an hour, a day. The commentary in these songs will stand as a historical document, a postcard and a warning, the human result of the high cost of living.
Sick In The Head solidifies the hip-hop connection, a neat cross between early Dre and the roster of the High Focus label, it bounces like a Mexican carnival, still with the undercurrent of 90s rave that permeates the entire record, while Love Making returns to Garage, another massive synth bass line drops in like an old friend just out of jail, always welcome but unexpected. The constant swapping between languages is not a problem for the listener, living as we do in multicultural times, even if the forced colonial history, the rictus smile that never reaches the eyes is rarely far from the surface. Language doesn’t disappear by accident.
Drug Dealing Pagans is a tale of, well, you know. Moreover, it is a genius mix of Nelly-style 90s hip-hop and Gaelic prayer, a dancefloor future favourite, play it loud and watch your Reebok Classics turn fresh white again. Harrow Road, like other songs here, has a guest onboard, someone to widen the view a little, lighten the load, in this case, the excellent Jelani Blackman, in a tale of paranoia running around the streets of London, where the pizza man at least had a lucky escape. Musically, a near Burialesque piece of appropriately dark sound scaping in several stages, it is another brilliant song in a haystack of brilliant songs, no needle required.
Parful (“ Arriving late to a rave with an Eighth, and ye jawbone aches and ye still feel Parful”) is a full-on rave classic, as side Two morphs into a juxtaposition of music and lyrics, angelic backing vocals come swimming through the hash smoke and the melancholy becomes laced with hope. Rhino Ket pulls the same trick but better, a story of taking too much Ketamine walking the Falls Road, and the unique dangers that brings, It is every dance scene in every cheap rave movie, times ten, and it’s glorious.
Way Too Much is the last song and The Last Song. Designed for a little elegance, a choir to help the crowd appreciate its importance, big pianos and big themes. Similar to The Street’s more elegiac moments, it’s quite beautiful both musically and lyrically, a plea to slow down and calm down, to relax because it is over before you know it.
A superlative album, eventually, a thesis will be written about the number of drawn lines and connected references here, to politics and history and samples, and that context will remain important, especially here, but as Fela Kuti knew, the music is the music is the music, and when everything is stripped away, that is what remains, something for the ages.
Kneecap can be found at Instagram | Facebook | Website
All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram.
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