Album Review
Angry!
True Stories
DL / CD
Out today 20 July 2026
LTW was the only major outlet to cover Angry! when they released their debut single in April 2026, because we still believe that Punk Rock is not just a 50 year old museum piece and series of anniversaries but a living, breathing, constantly mutating thing which survives because of new voices, like Angry! (Anne and Gary previously, now a full 4-piece). Call it ‘naïve’, call it ‘basic’ – but it’s three chords and the truth says Ged Babey.
Angry! are a kind of present day Bullshit Detector type band, crossed with a real-life Riot Women style combo. Their music is basic and their lyrics naive but they have a disarming charm and honesty about them and they’ve come to realise that their ‘anger’ as well as being ‘an energy’ comes over as comedic at times.
Take, for example, the story behind why track number 2 on this album got its title…
Originally titled “My Mate says you’re just a Cunt”, shortened to “Cunt 3” reflecting its part of a series of songs with the word “cunt” in the title, the lyrics were changed when Angry! played a family friendly gig supporting the Celia Hammond Trust cat charity. Given that the revised words fitted rather neatly and given the rather catty nature of the lyrics, the new title and words stuck.
Cunt 2 makes the cut for the album too you’ll be pleased to know, as does the previously released You’re Alright.
The album captures a period of song-writing by Anne Smith when she was re-assessing her life and relationships, resulting in some quite barbed lyrics. Other subjects covered in the album are employment agencies, in “Money” [“they just want your money, they don’t give a fuck”], people having loud conversations in public places, in “Café”* [“I don’t want to hear your conversation – shut the fuck up!] and people who judge you superficially, in “Cunt 2” [I’d rather say cunt than be one].
There is also a sub-set of songs about food. “Meat Feast Pizza” dates from when Anne worked in a vegan deli – it should be added that no animals were harmed in the making of these meat feast pizzas – and “Cauliflower”, which is the closest thing to a love song that Angry! have written.
The eleven songs whizz by in less than 26 minutes so there is no flab or excess. The songs get to the point and have an immediacy and nursery rhyme quality with buzzing guitar and whip-crack snare.
Whilst you could say there are over-arching themes in a lot of the songs: Racism, misogyny, capitalism… the best thing about the lyrics is how they take annoying everyday situations and get angry, voice their frustration, and then laugh at them – primitive, raw punk rock as pressure valve.
It’s snobbery and hypocrisy in Not OK. Employment agencies that make no effort to cater for people as individuals in Money. And several songs seem to be about manners, rudeness and entitlement – the way people treat each other nowadays. This might seem peculiar when you think about the beginnings of Punk and it’s media labelling as foul-mouthed yobs and anti-social behaviour – but it echoes the famous Strummer quote about punk being about ‘exemplary manners’.
Highlight of the album is probably Girl At The Edge of The Moshpit – which seems to be crying out for some Xray Spex style sax, maybe because of the Poly echoes in the vocal.
Cafe has similar sentiments to Boring Conversations by Fatal Microbes (1979) and a couple songs splutter to life with guitar that sounds very like Breakdown and Friends of Mine from Spiral Scratch.
Bizarrely the band that Angry! reminded me of immediately were the ‘legendary’ short-lived Period Pains (1997) – teenage girls who wrote rants about the Spice Girls , Wanting a Pony and homework. It’s the same kind of naïve innocence and lack of a game-plan. Songs of frustration, written in minutes, recorded in one take and sent out into the world before the thrill of creation and free expression has faded.
It’s nice to not have to mention the Slits/Raincoats in a review of a female punk singer. Fatal Microbes and Period Pains as touchstones still make Angry part of the story of punk DIY feminism and empowerment. And on the evidence of True Stories, they had a lot of fun making this album.
The guitar sound is like a beehive being poked with a stick and Annes vocals swoop and holler, croak and curse, and at least two songs end with the words ‘True Story’.
Someone should have told her that ‘sycophant’ doesn’t really rhyme with cunt. But she is one of a few people who can get away with it. Just.
Punk at 50 – new voices, characters and songs that are Angry, fun and True.
Some people think Women of a Certain Age should be seen and not heard…. but we all know that’s bollocks.
Angry! play at the Fickle Pickle in Southend on Friday 24 July with Wytchead, Whoremoan and No Comply.
If you can offer the band support slots contact them on Facebook
Buy the album from:
Available on CD from the band.
All words byGed Babeywith quotes, PR content, lyrics in italics
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