Laundry Records
Out now
Goodbye To All That takes an evocative and powerful wander through the tentacles of Britain’s imperial past. With the title being a nod to the poet Rupert Brooke, it’s laced with bitter reflections chronicling British energies of aggression and domination around the pre-nuclear globe and appears at a notable moment, as the UK sits back as a somewhat hapless bit player inside the Trump regime’s evermore insane war with Iran. Richard David reviews for Louder Than War.
A film maker by day and passionate, angry post-Punk poet by night, Vennis applies a vivid documentary-like focus to an array of subject matter infused with the vain pageantry and bloodied savagery of Britain’s supposedly ‘glorious’ past. The redundancy of empire and subsequent fragmentation of a society wrought by conflict between those reaching for a future built upon diversity and tolerance, as opposed to romanticised bigotry and hate, is encapsulated in the final chorus of the closing title track:
Goodbye to all of that. As you stand beneath the blood stained Union Jack.
With those lines summoning up visions of the hordes likely to descend upon London again this summer behind the likes of ‘Tommy Robinson ‘, throughout the album Vennis lyrically spits out relentless condemnations of the mentality driving such energies. The fact that he feels drawn to such exercises clearly underlines contemporary reality, one wherein the abject failure of that empire and its guardians to inject a true level of education among the wider population, leaves us adrift in a Britain awash with visceral social tensions.
Side One opens with ”The Beating Of The Drum”, on which acoustic guitar and powerful drums combine to create a wistful backdrop to Vennis’s warning of imminent crisis. It’s a song which captures the risks within the current Middle East conflict. ”All I can hear is the beating of the drum, all I can hear is the hammer on the nails into the coffin as the ship sets sail.” It’s the year 2026 AD in the 21st century and still the west’s leaders posture behind threats and acts of war, with their considerations for humanity and concepts such as ‘international law’, as contemptuous as they always were when Britannia ruled the waves.
”This Nations Ghosts” continues a nautical theme, with the opening verse highlighting how organised religion – in the guise of biblical fairytales – combined with the might of the gun to ensure Britain’s stranglehold on a byegone world.
The stomach churning spectacle of Trump posting visions of himself as Christ on Truth Social recently, tragically confirmed as to how the two tools of oppression have simply swapped flags with no refining of the crudest aspects still dominating warfare within today’s world. Musically, an initially sparse backing evolves into multi-layered passages of tasteful guitar work, which provide effective atmospherics for Vennis’s acerbic musings.
‘Empire Rd’ deploys the title of a late 70s British soap series, the first to be written, directed and acted by Black Artists and featuring the late Norman Beaton in the lead role. Fittingly, Vennis makes reference to ”the sugar beet and the cotton” being another example of the white man’s ”fake freedom offer”, with the plantations of the Caribbean being a source of ”more gold for the coffers”. Kings, Vicars, Queens and ”grubby merchants” sit astride Empire Rd, with the working class designated to a supporting role as desperate ”cannon fodder”. Quite.
”All Points South”, still maintains an ocean-going perspective, this time being the tale of a young boy press-ganged into service in the Royal Navy and the horrors he can expect to encounter before potentially finding sleep ”in an underwater grave”. It’s a stark, grim vision flavoured by some nice spoken vocal passages from Vennis, accompanied again by striking guitar interplay.
The aforementioned title track closes Side One. It’s a song that combines contemporary concrete desolation and a youthful diet of cheap drugs, booze and cigarettes, with the horrors faced by young men within the grotesque trenches of the Great War. Via bitingly economic lyrical application, the closing lines encapsulate the obscene pontificating espoused within celebrations of war i.e ”The Generals and lords in red and gold watch the parade pass by. Under a tearful sky, they pretend to cry. Twisting on their hypocrisy and shame, untold horror and pain.”
Side Two commences with ”The Trader”, a sneering summary of the relationship between empire violence, subjugation and commerce. Summoning up visions of greedy, vampire-like merchants standing in the shadows of invading military empire forces, it paints a picture of blistering equations which find their reflection within the stock market wolves of America today, as they hang on Trump’s every latest war proclamation.
”An English Tragedy” again draws on the wretched mythology and symbolism which constitutes much of the empire’s social legacy. ”Colonel Blimp” makes an appearance as a graduate of the English public school system, the sickly self conceived purity of ”cricket whites and arrogant fools”, acting as an embodiment of what are in all truth systemically non-virtuous characterisations of the ruling classes. Whilst in dark reality, Vennis poses the question ”The workhouse of the world, is it all forgotten?”…..Very sadly, within those massed ranks still waving their red, white and blue cabaret bunting, yes, it damned well is.
”Crawling Through The Woods” finds Vennis struggling through metaphorical, murky woods in a forlorn quest for the much heralded elements of British ”Truth and justice”. These being traitorous concepts which have long eluded ongoing generations of working class people, with the most unfortunate and depraved of them quite often meeting the cold stare of a bewigged Judge and the ultimate grip of the hangman’s noose. As this government seeks to significantly reduce the level of offences guaranteeing a citizen a right to trial by jury, does anybody with a functioning brain really believe that today’s working classes will be better served by the single deliberations of modern Judges? Yeah, OK Lord Snooty.
About two minutes cycle ride from our front door, stands a statue of ‘Gordon Of Khartoum’, the British Empire General who perished in the ill-feted siege of Khartoum in 1884. Gordon lived in our city and there are roads and pubs named after him close to his former residence. In ”Just Another Campaign” Vennis stares into the rigidly sociopathic – sometimes psychopathic – mindscapes of empire military commanders like Gordon and their long history of blithely sacrificing the lives of low ranking soldiers as pawns, within often spurious campaigns and battles. The bitterly ironic observation from Vennis that such aspects formed the basis of playground school games for long periods of post-empire history, again reinforces the degree to which common people were mind-washed by revolting glorifications.
‘Golden Country’ sees Vennis heading off down rolling country lanes in a bid to escape an onrushing sense of mental turmoil.
It’s a clever song, one which identifies the role of and lure of the countryside and its seemingly assuring balms within the overall British social landscape. Ever the searing realist however, Vennis points out as to how ”The thatched roofs go up like a light, you could see the flames for miles through the night.” In closing he reflects ”Canterbury tales in which we serve, your life’s heartbeat and the countryside merge.”
Those are brilliantly astute observations. Beneath the imposing spires of rural churches, the countryside for all its physical beauty, has always been a mighty tool of class oppression. If anybody wants blistering confirmation of that, then they’d do well to ponder the following facts. In 1834, administration of the British Empire at the hands of the ruling Establishment, was undergoing a transitional phase facilitated by the abolition of slavery throughout many of its then international territories. Whilst being clearly a very significant advance in humanitarian terms, back home in Dorset it was the very same year in which six agricultural labourers were sentenced to penal transportation to Australia, for the sin of forming a Trade Union. Golden Country indeed…
The album’s closing track ”Requiem” records Vennis’s perennial sense of frustration for such exercises, albeit in terms of sanctifying war or the lone funerals of burned out individuals within contemporary society, with both versions being accompanied by the eternal tears of mothers. It’s a fitting end to an album which is laden with dark visions of the past and often caustic rebuttals of traditional British history and ritual. To be frank, there’s not many uplifting moments in these songs but that in no way undermines their validity as a body of work.
If western popular music as a form of Art is fully living up to its responsibilities, then it should be confronting the horrific legacy of things like the British Empire full on and without emotional compromise. ‘Goodbye To All That’ does this unflinchingly. As such, it’s a tremendous album, the lyrical result of one man’s life journey within the British system and the truths and realities he maintains as an essence of his being. Technically, there’s a high standard of musicianship with Vennis’s own guitar playing ensuring the songs are encased within gratifying musical tapestries.
Highly recommended to anybody who chooses to reside on Planet Reality.
The album is on Spotify
or buy from Bandcamp
You can find Mark Vennis & Different Place onFacebook Instagramand theirwebsite.
All words Richard David for LTW
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