Some, upon hearing this song, might say to themselves, Oh no, not another anti-war song, haven’t we had enough of those? But the more poignant and proper question would be, why do artists like Mark Vennis still feel compelled to write them? Look at it from that angle, and the answer is obvious, and I suspect that such artists will keep on writing them until the world no longer needs them, if you can imagine such a time.
This is first single from the forthcoming album, Goodbye To All That, which, as you will remember from your school days, is also the title of Robert Graves wartime memoirs and as such hints at the themes that will be found within.
“The Beating of the Drum” makes no bones about its anti-war sentiments, and over the band’s trademark blends of upbeat acoustica and punk energy, folky deftness and ragged, rabble-rousing rock and roll, the imagery and ideas are unmissable.
But, of course, this is no mere relentless raging, that power is harnessed into some fantastic dynamics, subtle, finger-picked undertatements balance fist-in-the-air anthemics, sing-along gang choruses merge into cool lead breaks, windswept and interesting punk-folkery blends with an almost pop accessibility, the sort of thing that perhaps, The Men They Couldn’t Hang might have come up with in their ngolden age.
And perhaps the sad thing is that, after centuries of people writing anti-war songs —from “Barrett’s Privateers” to “Fortunate Son” to, well, this —nothing has changed. In fact, I would go as far as to say that with the way the world is going, we need people like Mark Vennis & Different Place more than ever.
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