Penis Envy

This is the most all-round listenable Crass album. Being all female vocals and with a feminist theme, it's different to anything else they've done but still definately Crass. Although Crass have never been about music, this is one that might turn your freinds on to them.

If i had to choose only one Crass album it would be a difficult choice between this and Stations Of The Crass, but taking 'listenability' into account, it would be this one.

Crass deliver a post punk album that is musically their most creative. In the same year as Ghost Town by the Specials, Gang Of Four Solid Gold and Cabaret Voltaire's Red Mecca. Penis Envy was part of the soundtrack to Britain falling to pieces. I thought revolution was finally here but then came Spandau Ballet and punk was binned for "new romance"!

30 years on and this album is still relevant and the music hasn't dated. It can be experimental one track then get quite funky on another.

Crass opened up many new ideas that I still hold today. I might be a grumpy old man now but I'm still angry at the greedheads running the planet....

Beneath its polished black surface, Penis Envy is Crass at their tightest, almost clinical even, it is intricate and disturbing in places but many of these soundscapes and lyrics deal with the perverse and the bound. The front cover (of the original album release, beautifully reproduced here in miniature with a stunning 64 page booklet) features the face of a plastic doll which appears trapped yet eternally willing within its tight, open mouthed, shrink wrapped shroud.

One of the album's themes is the portrayal and perception of women as grotesque dolls, finely air-brushed and polished to 'statuesque perfection.' Which brings us to the lyrics, and what lucid and lurid lyrics they are. Joy de Vivre and Eve Libertine wrote some of the most beautifully strange lyrics that I have ever had the good fortune to read, they really do blend from a brilliant landscape of dark lyricism to the delicate paths of a unique, startling poetry. To illustrate this here are some wonderful examples.

From Poison In Pretty Pill. (by Joy de Vivre)

'They deal with flesh, incarcerate with rags, red lips, shimmer-silk and body bags, hairless legs against the blistered napalm burn. I want to rape the substance of your downy hair, in that mist a gutted child fights for air. Against the fragile, mashed and sweaty wound, your facile beauty has an outrageous sound, like a glamour billboard on a battlefield. At least the blood-red poppy was of natures will. That flower perfecting by the barbed wire fence must be insulted by your scented poor pretence.' In terms of musical intelligence, Poison In A Pretty Pill is also very interesting with those needle-like guitar sounds, small and sharp at first, then spreading, like the effect of ink in water. The bass guitar work is also worth mentioning, a slick, snaking thing that pulsates and drives through the track (and indeed throughout the album) but the real standout track, in terms of bass guitar, lies within the classic Systematic Death.

From Bata Motel. (by Eve Libertine)

'Tease me, tease me, the reason to play, in my red high heels I can't get away. I'll be your bonsai, your beautiful bonsai, your black-eye bonsai, erotically rotting.' There are tight, chugging guitars here with what sounds like wah-wah pedals all infused with full on punk rock energy and a refined, clean production - crystal clear on this remastered edition. There has been a lot of talk regarding the release of these remasters, they do sound very different (in places) to the original vinyl and cd releases but to that I would simply say keep (listening to) the originals if that is your preference but bear in mind, these are some of the most important, iconic albums ever recorded and these new editions preserve the history of these recordings and further enhance their uniqueness and originality.

From Health Surface. (by Joy de Vivre)

'Shattered proofing of the lost, splinter shackled, little wounds of cruelty and truth, they tie the one way sickness up inside... places of laughter leave me cool, hot fire burning down to ash... without a sinking heart this sigh could be the wind among the leaves. This pain does not belong to me, they've taken everything away.'

'With weighty promises of love, waiting for the last to fall away. Buckle noose around the strap, all that separates the flesh. From green grass or sinking mud, stagnating, knowing the delusion, clean sheets waiting for a body, slapped into life and slowly gutted... drip-fed tears of the forsaken.'

If I could, I would kiss Eve and Joy for these (brilliantly evocative) images and words, for the sheer pleasure and inspiration their work has given me over the years. I read a lot and I love to read and yet out of all the magazines, books and poetry that I adore, I always seem to find myself returning, from time to time, to these lyrics and to this album in particular. The imagery contained within the words and music never tires me, it is, in places, a dark and introspective record, yet at the same time it holds its own quality of light. Its own quality of hope.

The uncontrived weirdness of this record, it encapsulates a very definative feeling for me, of being surrounded by modern life, this strange wildnerness of superficial people, of cold technology and the ancient roles of master and servant but at the same time there is a feeling of being free within its wild, churning centre.

And it reminds me of a simple truth.

There is no authority but yourself.