Monocled Alchemist

LP reviewed in Sounds, 22nd May, 1982

THE EXPLOITED ‘Troops Of Tomorrow’ (Secret SEC 8)***** AT ONE fairly advanced stage of the Swindle, McLaren assumed the guise of Oliver Twist to expound on Punk as the continuation of ‘200 years of teenage anarchy’, an active extremism aimed at leaving behind the constraints of the 20th Century and creating a new environment where foul-mouthed spikey guttersnipes could ‘truthfully run wild’.

What the Exploited have done here is construct that environment on vinyl. This album is an anarchic gem, a mind-boggling and bludgeoning pure energy attack stripped of all pretensions and delivered as gutter punk should be —raw, aggressive, and totally untamed.

The mutant gangs rampaging through scenes of urban desolation on the striking and aptly Maiden-esque cover mirror the recklessly rabid urchin soundtrack while simultaneously fingering it as another Rock Dream fantasy — a new escapism, just like the Pistols became but weren’t always.

The Exploited | Troops Of Tomorrow | (Secret) 1982

Not that there aren’t enough ‘reality punk’ references in the titles, but with Wattie still his wild unintelligible self, it’s the gang-stampede music that matters most and the gang-stampede music that makes all the connections.

If, like me, you were worried by the relative let-down of the muscley ‘Attack’, worry no more ‘cos 12 of the 14 belligerent beauties herein take-up where ‘Dead Cities’ left off, and represent some of the best punk of their kind ever committed to plastic.

‘Committed’ is the operative word, it’s mental; a senses-chivvying Total Noise explosion that is literally frightening in its sulphate savagery.

‘Jimmy Boyle’ opens the floodgates, rock-hard and so compact it’s almost suffocating. ‘Jimmy Boyle —Beat The System’ roars the Scum-land choir on the war-dance chant-chorus while the band generate enough power to light up Oxford Street all winter.

Boyle replaced Biggs in this adventure — the degradation and desperation factors multiply all down the line. As does the musical mania. John’s ferocious guitar is so hard and solid you could build skyscrapers on it, while the whole crew are tougher and tighter than the Hulk’s bear hug.

Listen to the Charles Atlas job they do on ‘Oi — The Album’ fave, the sinewy attack on Fleet Street reactionaries ‘Daily News’. And revel at the demented delivery of pogo pile-drivers like the exhilarating ‘Alternatives’ (remixed and better than ever) or the equally rabid ‘Rapist’ with its savage lead lashes.

There are only two departures from the glorious 100mph Motorhead-punk norm, the stomping peace-nik protest of ‘War’ and the title track, a Vibrators song with an insistent beat and a growling guitar riff which they install with an urgent, sinister strength.

The Exploited | Troops Of Tomorrow | (Secret) 1982

Lyrically there are fewer surprises, with disco, Thatcher and Wattie’s pet hate, the Kate Karney, reaping most of the tongue-lashing fury. But though undeniably the anti-Reagan ‘(F*** The) USA’ represents a quantum jump from the tribal rival revelry of ‘F*** A Mod’, a little ditty called ‘Sid Vicious Was Innocent’ has got to be well suspect.

Not only was Sidney a tosser, but the gap between him and Rotten represents the gap between Swindle-punk and Real-punk, and somewhere Malcolm is laughing at ironies we haven’t worked out yet.

Ploughing on through the sea of scorching stormers we arrive at the fourteenth and final track. Unannounced on the sleeve, it amounts to the band belting out a basic riff faster than everything else on the record while Wattie snarls ‘Oo you f***in’ looking at?’.

A suitably belligerent finale to a coarsely contagious set of marauding mayhem that genuinely establishes the Exploited as spikey league leaders. Chron-Gen, Vice Squad, Discharge et al don’t even come close. (Garry Bushell)

The Exploited | Troops Of Tomorrow | (Secret) 1982

WELCOME TO we hate the world part 94. Again. You got it, the Exploited and their second album, a relentless screaming, snorting and snarling howl that’s full of redundant rage and unoriginal outrageousness.

It’s all so predictable, darling. It’s like attending a Tory garden late in the sixties, you know what’s coming next all the time. The musical vagrants make their 90 mile an hour dash of hate and frustration, ably assisted by a liberal sprinkling of four letter words, tribal grunts and primeval blitherings.

All the obvious targets are here, the USA (“fuck the USA”), Reagan (“Reagan’s a cunt”), Fleet Street (“all wankers”) etc, etc, etc. The trouble is, the Exploited have just become a parody of themselves as they blast inaccurately at everything in sight. A style, a pose although I’m sure they all believe it passionately. As outmoded and corny and hackneyed as any latter day Teddy Boy or psychedelic freak.

And the biggest irony is that half the frustration comes from the fact that no-one’s shocked any more. We grin, we giggle and fall about as they swear and spit on us. They’re cute and reassure all powers that be that they’re really wanted. It’s a shame, but no-one can really shock us any more, least of all by dressing and talking and singing dirty.

The cover, I’m told, shows an “Escape From New York” vision of a desolated city where punk can express its essential nature of youth anarchy. What rot. Actually it looks just like another grotesque Iron Maiden cover – indeed most of the songs fall in with the gross heavy metal riffs and rhythms favoured by that other bunch of self elected outcasts.

The only song that really stands out as different is the title track, the old Vibrators number ‘Troops Of Tomorrow’, given an ominous jackboot crunching beat. After that everything just degenerates back to foul mouthed rantings and ravings.

Filth and squalor? Not really. The Exploited aren’t as funny as the Anti-Nowhere League and to borrow one of ANL’s best lines “So what, you boring little cunts.” (Record Mirror, 26/06/82)  

The Exploited | Troops Of Tomorrow | (Secret) 1982

The Exploited | Troops Of Tomorrow | (Secret) 1982 | APART FROM its marvellous cover, which depicts “an Escape From New York vision of a desolated city where punk can express its essential nature of youth anarchy” (a highly revealing bit of blurb, that one),The Exploited‘s second album is undistinguished by any personal birthmarks. However, it does NOT say “thanks to Gary Bushell” on it — I’ve searched all over it and it quite definitely does not.

This still leaves a prominent question unanswered: Why is it that The Exploited, out of what must be thousands of equally likely/unlikely contenders, have emerged as one of the few BIG British punk groups? Even if one bears in mind what old Gene October said about “the real fuckin’ tough stuff”, it’s difficult to place these jovial Scots on either side of the proverbial barricades. Where ‘Dogs Of War’ was really quite invigorating in its foulness, ‘Troops Of Tomorrow’ is a mite wet.

‘USA’ reduces “I’m so bored with the . . “to “Fuck the . .”, but I wonder: do they have a reason for such an economy? Actually, their titles are sublime in their concise brevity, my favourite being ‘Alternative (Remix)‘, though ‘So Tragic’ and ‘Sid Vicious Was Innocent’ aren’t bad at all.

Musically, Big John, who is not a pretty sight, plays blazing heavy metal guitar licks and perhaps, what with Bushell currently forsaking Oi for “Total Noise” and UFO’s Pete Way producing the new Cockney Rejects LP, The Exploited will soon drop the facade and join the ranks of the headbangers.

It would seem that the difference between Punk and Metal is becoming increasingly sartorial and decreasingly ideological. The post-apocalypse ghouls on the cover of ‘Troops’, climbing out of drains and dustbins and brandishing clubs and chains, bear more than passing resemblance to Maiden’s Eddie.

Quite possibly one should find the “left right left right” fadeout on ‘Troops’ (which was actually written by The Vibrators) mildly disturbing. But one doesn’t, because, in their turn, The Exploited have become Exploiters. Punk now seems to be an idiot’s game on a vast scale, in which all the music sounds roughly the same and where the rules consist of identifying with a certain type of group and not another (say Blitz as opposed to The Exploited themselves) for reasons at one moment stylistic and at another ideological.

There seems to be little consistency, let alone quality. I can’t fathom the vital distinctions between No Future and Total Noise, or even between spikes and skins, and I’m not sure I really care what they are.

The Exploited are perfectly proficient at their trade and I’m sure they keep a lot of people feeling happily done out of a happy life. If Wattie didn’t, like nearly all punk singers, feel this obligation to sing in a totally impenetrable East End bawl, it might be possible to determine whether, for instance,‘Rapist’ is as obnoxious a statement as one suspects. The only good part of ‘Troops Of Tomorrow’ is the ending, which takes a long time and is seemingly divorced from ‘Germs’, the last actual song. This is the single instance of concrete anarchy on the record. Otherwise it’s very clean, neat, straightforward, polite, relaxed, etc. (NME, 26th June 1982)

This still leaves a prominent question unanswered: Why is it that The Exploited, out of what must be thousands of equally likely/unlikely contenders, have emerged as one of the few BIG British punk groups? Even if one bears in mind what old Gene October said about “the real fuckin’ tough stuff”, it’s difficult to place these jovial Scots on either side of the proverbial barricades. Where ‘Dogs Of War’ was really quite invigorating in its foulness, ‘Troops Of Tomorrow’ is a mite wet.

‘USA’ reduces “I’m so bored with the . . “to “Fuck the . .”, but I wonder: do they have a reason for such an economy? Actually, their titles are sublime in their concise brevity, my favourite being ‘Alternative (Remix)‘, though ‘So Tragic’ and ‘Sid Vicious Was Innocent’ aren’t bad at all.

Musically, Big John, who is not a pretty sight, plays blazing heavy metal guitar licks and perhaps, what with Bushell currently forsaking Oi for “Total Noise” and UFO’s Pete Way producing the new Cockney Rejects LP, The Exploited will soon drop the facade and join the ranks of the headbangers.

It would seem that the difference between Punk and Metal is becoming increasingly sartorial and decreasingly ideological. The post-apocalypse ghouls on the cover of ‘Troops’, climbing out of drains and dustbins and brandishing clubs and chains, bear more than passing resemblance to Maiden’s Eddie.

Quite possibly one should find the “left right left right” fadeout on ‘Troops’ (which was actually written by The Vibrators) mildly disturbing. But one doesn’t, because, in their turn, The Exploited have become Exploiters. Punk now seems to be an idiot’s game on a vast scale, in which all the music sounds roughly the same and where the rules consist of identifying with a certain type of group and not another (say Blitz as opposed to The Exploited themselves) for reasons at one moment stylistic and at another ideological.

There seems to be little consistency, let alone quality. I can’t fathom the vital distinctions between No Future and Total Noise, or even between spikes and skins, and I’m not sure I really care what they are.

The Exploited are perfectly proficient at their trade and I’m sure they keep a lot of people feeling happily done out of a happy life. If Wattie didn’t, like nearly all punk singers, feel this obligation to sing in a totally impenetrable East End bawl, it might be possible to determine whether, for instance, ‘Rapist’ is as obnoxious a statement as one suspects. The only good part of ‘Troops Of Tomorrow’ is the ending, which takes a long time and is seemingly divorced from ‘Germs’, the last actual song. This is the single instance of concrete anarchy on the record. Otherwise it’s very clean, neat, straightforward, polite, relaxed, etc. (NME, 26th June 1982)