Wreckless Eric couldn’t let sleeping dogs, like A Roomful of Monkeys, lie. Greeted with yawning indifference by the public and slagged by critics, the 1985 LP – released under his Captains of Industry banner for Go! Discs – from the artist also known as Eric Goulden has been his cross to bear for some time, its failures weighing heavily on his mind.
Redemption comes in the form of the wonderfully feral England Screaming, a lively and wildly exciting reclamation project that roughly recycles material previously thought to be toxic. Scrawled across its bleakly urban cover is a rueful admission of artistic failure, but also a determination to make amends, to do right by songs begging to be reimagined by its creator, whose intentions here were not only good, but absolutely inspired.
Second chances don’t come around often, but prolific rock ‘n roll lifer Wreckless Eric, whose seminal 1977 hit “Whole Wide World” has been covered by The Monkees, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and Cage The Elephant, makes the most of this one. Injecting scraggly psychedelic buoyancy into jaunty romps through “Home & Away” and “The Lucky Ones,” Wreckless Eric seems enamored with solo Robyn Hitchcock and The Soft Boys, minus the surrealism and dealing in false hopes and fatalistic defeat instead. Darker still, gnarly garage-rock snarls and swaggers “Food Factory” and “Playtime is Over,” as well as a nasally, swinging “Lifeline,” surround the theatrical staging of centerpiece “Lady of the Manor,” which bristles with uplifting, glam energy and comes alive in a rousing chorus. She wears the pants in this dysfunctional family, keeping domestic order with an iron fist.
Assisted by wife Amy Rigby, who sings back-up vocals and plays some piano, as does Marc Valentine, while Sam Shepherd bangs on the drums all day, Wreckless Eric tackles most of instruments himself, which seems appropriate. Of all the 20 or so albums he’s done, under various aliases, England Screaming might mean the most personally, as Goulden proves himself as artful a chronicler of middle-class unrest, catastrophic financial ruin and downtrodden disaffection as The Kinks’ Ray Davies, only nastier and scrappier, like the late, great Mark E. Smith. Go visit the menacing, yet utterly gripping, “Our Neck of the Woods” as it delivers hard, stiff jabs of boldly struck, gleaming guitar riffs, sneering vocals and bounding bass – defiantly protective of its way of life, no matter how hardscrabble it is – and tell Wreckless Eric that’s wrong.
