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Subhumans Announce Breathtaking Box Set
UK punk legends SUBHUMANS have announced an incredible box set featuring their first 6 LPs alongside a bonus box set exclusive 10” version of “Unfinished Business.” All of these records were remixed and remastered from the original tapes. This box set is filled with items that collectors will immediately want to get their hands on. In addition […]
UK punk legends SUBHUMANS have announced an incredible box set featuring their first 6 LPs alongside a bonus box set exclusive 10” version of “Unfinished Business.” All of these records were remixed and remastered from the original tapes. This box set is filled with items that collectors will immediately want to get their hands on. In addition to the box set, all of these LPs will be available as individual releases.
One of the biggest highlights from this box set is the 52 page book-bound 12″x12″ booklet with Dick’s original diary entries from the recording sessions, unseen photos, and original lyrics sheets. The booklet was laid out and designed by Daryl Smith of Cock Sparrer. Additionally, the box set hosts a 12″ slipmat with the band’s iconic Skull logo. Finally, the box set contains the 12″ Blood Red & Black ‘Galaxy’ vinyl, the rarest variant, housed in black embossed innersleeves.
In all, the box set contains:
The Day The Country Died LP
From The Cradle To The Grave LP
Worlds Apart LP
29:29 Split Vision LP
EP-LP LP
Time Flies + Rats LP
Unfinished Business EP
12″ Slipmat
12″x12″ 52-page booklet
THE DAY THE COUNTRY DIED
The astounding debut album that established the Subhumans as a genuine force to be reckoned with, ‘The Day The Country Died’ captured both the band’s serious anarcho punk ideology and their irreverent sense of humour. Recorded over just four days during the heady summer of 1982, and released six months later in January 1983, when it quickly climbed to No. 3 in the UK’s Independent Charts, this exhilarating collection of songs has endured for four decades, the band still regularly kicking their live set off with the opening track, ‘All Gone Dead’.
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A
1. All Gone Dead
2. Ashtray Dirt
3. Killing
4. Minority
5. Mickey Mouse Is Dead
6. Nothing I Can Do
7. Dying World
8. Subvert City
SIDE B
9. Big Brother
10. New Age
11. I Don’t Wanna Die
12. No
13. Zyklon B-Movie
14. ‘Til The Pigs Come Round
15. No More Gigs
16. Black And White
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE
With their eclectic influences and scintillating musicianship, Subhumans were never going to be content to trot out anarcho punk by numbers, but no-one was really prepared for the progressive brilliance of their sophomore album, ‘From The Cradle To The Grave’. Whilst the A-side contains nine short sharp bursts of energised punk, gleefully embracing all points of the spikey spectrum, from the breakneck thrash of ‘Reality Is Waiting For A Bus’ to the ominous dirge of ‘Wake Up Screaming’, it is the ambitious title track that really captures the imagination, its sprawling sixteen-plus-minute running time telling the sorry tale of the human life cycle across a myriad of dynamic acts.
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A
1.
2. Forget
3. Waste Of Breath
4. Where’s The Freedom?
5. Reality Is Waiting For A Bus
6. Us Fish Must Swim Together
7. Wake Up Screaming
8. Adversity
9. Rain
SIDE B
10. From The Cradle To The Grave
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WORLDS APARTArguably the highlight of their Eighties output, the third Subhumans album was recorded at Woodlands Studio, Castleford, during Spring 1985, and released early the following year, a few months after the band had split. Opening with the slightly incongruous instrumental, ‘33322’, what it lacks in rampant speed, it more than compensates for with some truly sublime compositions, assured arrangements and dizzying time changes. With a front cover illustration inked by vocalist Dick, ‘Worlds Apart’ saw the band find a veritable sweet spot in their song-writing, spawning many of their best-loved tracks, such as ‘Apathy’, ‘Businessmen’ and ‘Can’t Hear The Words’, but every single track on the album remains an understated masterpiece.
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A
1. 33322
2. British Disease
3. Heads Of State
4. Apathy
5. Fade Away
6. Businessmen
7. Someone Is Lying
8. Pigman
SIDE B
9. Can’t Hear The Words
10. Get To Work On Time
11. Carry On Laughing
12. Straightline Thinking
13. Ex-Teenage Rebel
14. Powergames
15. 33322
TIME FLIES + RATS
As the title suggests, this 1986 album compiled the eight-track ‘Time Flies… But Aeroplanes Crash’ 12”, originally recorded and released in 1983, and the four-track EP, ‘Rats’, that had been recorded during the summer of 1984 and released in early ’85. ‘Rats’ might just be the band’s most powerful and compelling release, the title track inspired by the Stop The City protests of ’84 that sought to highlight the undeniable links between first world capitalism and third world poverty. Whilst it’s something of a mish-mash, with several rowdy live tracks and a few, very enjoyable re-recordings of old Stupid Humans songs (Stupid Humans being guitarist Bruce’s pre-Subhumans band…), it contains two of the Subhumans’ best-loved tracks, ‘Work Rest Play Die’ and ‘Susan’, the latter something of an oddity as it’s a stirring piano piece, with lyrics written by Steve Hamilton, an old friend of the band.
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A
1. Get Out Of My Way
2. First Aid
3. Word Factory
4. People Are Scared
5. Susan
6. I Don’t Wanna Die
7. Everyday Life
8. Work•Rest•Play•Die
SIDE B
9. Joe Public
10. Labels
11. When The Bomb Drops
12. Rats
EP-LP
The EP-LP was originally released in early 1986, after the band had split in November 1985, and collected for convenience the first four Subhumans EPs onto one disc. This includes the fiery six-track debut, ‘Demolition War’, that was first unleashed at the end of 1981, the powerful and provocative ‘Reason For Existence’ and the perennial ‘Religious Wars’, both from 1982, and the intensely angry ‘Evolution’, from May 1983, whose title track rages so effectively against the senseless tragedy that is vivisection.
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A
1. Parasites
2. Drugs Of Youth
3. Animal
4. Society
5. Who’s Gonna Fight In The Third World War?
6. Human Error
7. Big City
8. Peroxide
9. Reason For Existence
10. Cancer
SIDE B
11. Religious Wars
12. Love Is…
13. It’s Gonna Get Worse
14. Work Experience
15. Evolution
16. So Much Money
17. Germ
18. Not Me
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29:29 SPLIT VISIONSo named because the CD version originally clocked in time-wise at 29 minutes and 29 seconds, ‘29:29 Split Vision’ was recorded in December 1985, just after the band had split up, and they wanted to bring some closure to that period by recording the new songs they were working on at the time, alongside some of their older material that hadn’t yet been properly recorded. Whilst the B-side hints at the underlying reasons the band split up – the inevitable ‘musical differences’, with the three newest songs on the release literally worlds apart (excuse the pun) from their classic material – the five songs on the A-side are veritable belters, and ‘Split Vision’ remains a frustratingly fascinating offering from this most unconventional of punk bands.
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A
1. Somebody’s Mother
2. Think For Yourself
3. Walls Of Silence
4. Heroes
5. Dehumanisation
SIDE B
6. Worlds Apart
7. New Boy
8. Time Flies…
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
TRACK LISTING:
SIDE A:
1. 864321
2. Curl Up And Die
3. What’s Your Number?
4. Motorway Song
SIDE B:
5. Glad To Be Alive
6. Song No. 35
7. No Thanks
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<p><strong>CATCH SUBHUMANS ON TOUR:</strong><br />03/22/2023 – Neath, United Kingdom – Dros Ben Tan<br />03/23/2023 – Worcester, United Kingdom – Marrs Bar<br />03/24/2023 – Sheffield, United Kingdom – Lughole<br />03/25/2023 – Scarborough, United Kingdom – Punk Fest<br />03/26/2023 – Wigan, United Kingdom – Boulevard<br />04/22/2023 – Austin, TX – Punk In Drublic</p>
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ABOUT SUBHUMANS:Subhumans are one of the most influential bands from the UK Anarcho-Punk scene of the 80’s, filed right alongside Crass and Conflict, and just as relevant today as they were during the darkest days of Thatcher’s Britain. Take your choice in how to label them – Punk, UK82, Crusty, etc, – there lies the attraction and consequent reason for their popularity, the band epitomizes non-conformity and connects with people in many different scenes.
Forming in 1980, recording and releasing a series of live and demo cassette tapes on their own Bluurg label, they continued to release music throughout the 80’s – building a powerhouse of a back catalog that completely stands the test of time. Their debut LP ‘The Day the Country Died’ (1983), with its Orwellian influence, is considered by many to be a classic and has sold in excess of 100,000 copies. The second album, ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’, came swiftly the following year (1984), and although the same frenetic pace is in evidence, this marks a significant musical development for the band. In 1985 Subhumans broke up, citing the usual musical differences, although had managed to release a third, maybe ironically entitled, LP ‘Worlds Apart.’ A final LP was released posthumously in 1986, ‘29:29 Split Vision,’ a further demonstration of how far the band had come musically from their initial leanings.
Dick Lucas subsequently joined Culture Shock and then formed political ska-punk band Citizen Fish in 1990, both bands releasing many albums, and still playing today. Subhumans had a couple of reunion shows in the nineties, before a more permanent return for the 21st century, including several major tours of the US, the first resulting in the ‘Live in a Dive’ LP. The Subhumans then released a further studio album in 2007, ‘Internal Riot,’ again on Bluurg Records. The band is still passionate and angry, illustrated by Dick saying “Being in a band is the source of most of my passion and drive! The live experience of sharing it with people keeps it ongoing, the release of anger, frustration and initially negative/destructive states of mind is a release from the downward spiral of keeping it all bottled up and it feels positive/constructive as a result.”
In 2019, Subhumans released their latest record “Crisis Point” on Pirates Press Records, an album that displayed ferocity and poignancy which demonstrated why Subhumans have been one of the most famed punk bands of the last half-century. Filled with the same energy that Subhumans have embodied since the early 80s, “Crisis Point” took its place alongside their other classic records as a fan-favorite album.
Upon the release of Crisis Point, Subhumans have toured Europe and the U.S. extensively, including an appearance as part of Pirates Press Records’ “Rock The Ship” event where they played aboard an aircraft carrier, which can be recapped in this video.
This reissue series kicks off an extremely jam-packed 2023 for Subhumans with more surprises, lots of touring, and excitement for this year and beyond!
Source: thoughtswordsaction.com
