04. Peabody – The New Violence

The highest charting album on this list. Easily the heaviest album I liked in any capacity. Rock music is in terrible shape. As a genre it has absolutely nothing to say. Even up until the early 90s, rock expressed the furious anger of the marginalised. In the last few years of international torment, rock music has completely let us down with protest music. Rock music is a cartoon of itself. It’s like someone took the most vibrant, energetic and rebellious form of self expression, and trapped it in a jar. It looks kind of the same through the glass, but it generates no heat.

And after that long ramble, we come to Peabody’s the New Violence. Full of anger, accusation, fire, heart, feeling, meaning and all those things that would never occur to a band like the Killers. Witness Wrecking Ball, which climaxes with the scream “My generation is decline!”. I have a lot to say about this shithole of a country that I live in, but I won’t do it here. But Peabody helps me focus my angry energies.

It’s not all preachy. But it’s all uncompromising. But some of it is pure ear candy. First single Got You On My Radar is perfect pop, just turned up really loud. I Don’t Know, the most mellow moment moment on the album, is sweet and affecting. But it’s the rockers that really make the album take flight.

It’s hard to say who Peabody sound like nowadays. There’s definitely a jaggedness to their music, but also hardcore element (especially on Don’t Lose It, all one and a half minutes of it) and some truly strange things (Got Your Hooks In sounds like New Order with balls – perhaps Primal Scream then). Of all the albums on this list, I’m finding it hardest to describe and compare Peabody’s music.

But forget it all. From opener Synaesthesia, this album grabs you by the scruff of the neck and doesn’t let go. This album, and the next three, arte pretty much interchangeable for number one, depending on my mood. Thank god that it has only made number four today.

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