Thee Faction - Singing Down the Government or The War of Position and How We're Winning It

  by Benjamin Howarth

published: 12 / 1 / 2013

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Review

Plenty of bands flirt with left wing politics, but few make radicalism the core of their being. Thee Faction, however, are the real deal. ‘You have in your hands a 12 point programme to destroy capitalism’, reads the sleeve notes to this, their third album. Don’t expect vague allusions to philosophy and other intellectual lefty tropes – this is the soundtrack to collecting anti-war signatures and selling ‘Socialist Worker’outside an Oxfam shop. Titles like ‘Lets Have A Meetin’, ‘Soapbox’ and ‘(Don’t Call On Rock n Roll) Call On GDH Cole’ will give you a fair idea to where they are coming from. Every song is prefaced by a short piece on advice, culled from their favourite Marxist theories, outlining another part of their 12 track programme – which the band then set to the sound of their ‘Socialist RnB’. These snippets could potentially come to irritate even the most dedicated anti-capitalist, but sensibly Thee Faction have mastered these on to individual tracks, meaning you can programme your stereo to edit them out on subsequent editions. Meanwhile, that Socialist RnB is a heady brew – heavily indebted to the Clash, yet wholehearted and joyous. Every song is nimbly played, and furiously catchy – evidently honed over many years of benefit gigs and protest performances. They tend to be at their very best when singing to rally their already-converted comrades into action, rather than simply setting out their opposition to the liberal and bourgeois elite. Especially great is “What the Movement’s Done For You, Baby” – a put down to someone letting go of their roots. “If they’ve got pop songs, we’ll have even better pop songs”, we hear before the title track ‘Singing Down the Government’, and on this song they more than live up to their mission statement. Thee Faction must know that with songs as hip twitchingly danceable as this that they would significantly expand their fanbase by dropping the political subject matter. That fact, more than anything else, makes this album very easy to like. My favourite track is the last – ‘Union Man/Proletarian Man’ - a call to arms to join your local trade union. It’s a heartfelt, eminently achievable rallying call – set to irresistible rock and roll.

Track Listing:-

1 Let's Have A Meetin'
2 Soapbox
3 Don't Call On Rock'N'Roll (Call On G.D.H. Cole)
4 The Sausage Machine
5 What The Movement's Done For You, Baby
6 Who Benefits?
7 Responsible
8 Fun To Agitate
9 Singing Down The Government
10 The Kids
11 Tired Of Capital
12 Union Man/Proletarian Man

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/TheeFaction
http://www.theefaction.org/
https://twitter.com/theefaction