The Enemy - No friends of ours

"We'll Live and Die in These Towns" does one of the two, and it ain't living.

The Enemy

We'll Live and Die in These Towns

Released on Nov 30, -0001

2

The British are mad for it! That's right, I said mad for it! The 10+ years since Definitely Maybe came on the scene, the Brits have been on constant alert for the next Oasis to fill the energy and attitude void that the great band once claimed to have.

Released on the now revamped Stiff Records (though in name only, it's now owned by Warner Bros.), We'll Live and Die in These Towns is a case of complete and utter theft. The Jam should sue, the Manic Street Preachers should protest and Oasis should be turning over in their yachts. But fortunately for this crotchety Yankee listener, a few songs on this album are damn catchy and undeniably fun. Football hooligans and lager chugging lads have found new anthems in singles "Had Enough" and "Away From Here." Great tunes full of angst and social turmoil, but The Enemy were only embryos during the Thatcher years and they're singing it like they lived it. These kids need a good talking to from Billy Bragg. He'll set em' straight, or make them join a union. It's anyone's guess.

I'm absolutely lollipops over British music and completely taken in by the UK's last five years of Rock N' Roll output. From the irreverent humor of Art Brut, the dark searing beats of the now defunct Black Wire and even the sensitive "Man Rock" of Keane has pricked my ears up to attention. Their style of writing possesses an energy and a passion we Americans seemed to have lost in the Post-Limp Britney Bizkit years. Could this be the end for the second coming of Brit Pop? Could the "enemy" really be The Enemy? What the hell are we gonna respond with now that the Brits have lost their cool? "Middle School Musical" perhaps?

High Point

Low Point

Posted by Joe Roth on Sep 06, 2007 @ 12:00 am