Following their self-titled debut, Short Sharp Shock upped the ante by introducing a faster, wilder, and significantly more blown-out sonic signature. It marks the studio debut of the band's classic four-piece lineup featuring Mower (vocals), Gabba (guitar), Chaos (bass), and Chuck (drums). The album acts as a vital historical bridge, linking first-generation pub-punk and street-level anarchy directly to the faster, skate-punk, crust, and proto-grindcore subgenres that followed.
The lyrical themes deliver a direct, unapologetic assault on Thatcherite Britain, addressing systemic corruption, institutional control, urban decay, and anti-war sentiments. Packaged with a confrontational DIY spirit, the release eschewed all commercial safety nets. It earned immediate underground acclaim from contemporary tastemakers, including a famous review by Pushead in Maximum Rocknroll who described its blistering intensity as "mayhemic insanity".
State of the nation circa 1984. The UK’s punk scene was starting to wobble: aside from Conflict and the other Mortarhate bands, the anarcho punk movement was running out of steam; while hardcore was a new, imported style that was still waiting to cast it’s omnipotent influence this kind of chaos hardcore would soon be fairly widespread in the US at the time… In the meantime, step forward the scruffbags of Bristol and take a bow (woah, steady now – too much cider, yeah? Up ya get). This is a vast leap above stuff happening in the UK at the time, worlds punchier than the class-of-77 stuff and significantly faster and wilder (if not heavier) than Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing.
Some great fuzzed to the max divebombing on the guitars which are often a little out of tune and sound like the amplifier they're being played through might be malfunctioning. The riffs are retarded, so simple they're sublime. The vocals often start out coherent and then degenerate into a tuneless squall. The drummer bashes on whatever's closest to his hands without care. And the songs...well they're one more angry pissed off rant after another, and it's hard to see where the verses end and the choruses might begin.
Acting as a midway conduit between the two halves of the 1980’s: ranting political-punk in a spiked leather jacket, meet speed obsessed skater-punk in squelchy army surplus cast-offs. Short Sharp Shock is a riotous landmark recording from Chaos UK, following-up their debut album from the previous year with something faster, wilder, angrier and noisier than (anyone else) before. If the Sex Pistols had started with this record, they'd have been laughed off the planet. In other words, Chaos UK were and are what punk always should have been. A complete fucking anarchic mess with no regard for anything but having a total blast while banging as hard as you could on yer guitar.
Excellent.
Ripped to MP3
01 - Lawless Britain
02 - Living in Fear
03 - Detention
04 - Support
05 - Control
06 - People at the Top
07 - Global Domination
08 - No One Seems to Really Care
09 - Farmyard Stomp (Again)
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