Gallows - Staring at the Rude Bois

  by John Clarkson

published: 22 / 11 / 2007

Label: Warner Bros
Format: CDS

intro

Surprisingly effective reworking of the Ruts classic by Watford punk-metal group Gallows

It shows a potential foolhardiness and over inflated ego to take a classic punk anthem and then to reinvent it with your own words. On paper it sounds like a recipe for disaster as well to add a rapper to it to give it a more urban feel. Yet Watford punk-metal group Gallows’ spirited ‘Staring at the Rude Bois’, a reworking of the Ruts’ 1980 single, ‘ Staring at the Rude Boys’, proves against the odds to be surprisingly effective. Like all good covers it remains true to its source, but builds on it. The slashing guitars and fiery drum work of the original are maintained. While the late Malcolm Owen’s now time-worn lyrics told of punk/skinhead tensions, Gallows’ hoarse-voiced singer Frank Elliot and guest rapper Lethal Bizzle, who appears in the last quarter of the song, have up-dated them with a tale of two rival gangs from different towns bloodily squaring up to each other in a club. As the song sears towards its conclusion, it becomes apparent that at least some of the gang don’t really want to be fighting at all, but do so because they don’t know anything else. In its bleak nihilism and self-disgust, ’Staring at the Rude Bois’ perfectly mirrors the state of the times.

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