Good Weather For Airstrikes

It must be a tough job being a headteacher, dealing with all those rambunctious teenagers, always with their saracstic comments and their paper airplanes (see the band’s related promo shots as a case in point). In fact, it’s probably enough to inspire some pretty serious fury, and what better way to let off some steam than to plug in and unleash some, er, furious post-punk with a hardcore slant like that found on Fury of the Headteacher’s latest single, “Farewell Comrade”. No word on whether any members of FotH have any teaching experience or if they’re just sympathizing with the teachers on whom they wreaked havoc in their school days, but they manage to unleash a serious dose of raw intensity on “Comrade” all the same.

That raw intensity recalls that found on Bloc Party’s debut EP, and indeed, Fury of the Headteachers sound to me like Bloc Party might if they’d never met Paul Epworth and chose to focus more on the “punk” over the “dance” in the dance-punk equation. That’s not to say “Farewell Comrade” isn’t Epworthy, mind you; it’s as promising a single as any released this year and lord knows there’s room for Epworth or some other dance-minded producer to work some magic within these walls - especially with that insanely catchy and, dare I say, danceable central riff to work with - but up-and-coming Sheffield producer Paul Harris does a pretty flawless job of maximizing the song’s raw intensity, the primary element on which the success of the song really rests its hat. While I could maybe do without that incessant creaking-door effect over the bridge, Harris handles the song’s massive climax in the final minute (a moment on par with any in music this year), in which a ridiculous crescendo peaks in a ballistic white noise explosion, without flaw. Elsewhere, the song rides that aforementioned ridiculously catchy central riff to perfection for three minutes of unabashed guitar-rock glory and makes its real money on that insanely awesome “X! Is! For execution!” chorus, which elevates its status from “hey this is awesome” to “fucking badass as hell” in just four words. Building on a pounding drumbeat and snowballing in intensity throughout, the shit hits that fan at that final ridiculous crescendo I mentioned before - the band unleash a barrage of everything in their arsenal, resulting in an impenetrable wall of screaming guitars, droning bass, bleeding vocal chords, those massive drums and white noise, before everything’s stripped away to reveal only that original guitar riff, closing things out perfectly as the listener regains their composure and tries to get their life back on track.

The flipside features “Stumped”, another lesson in angsty, jittery rawness, and while there’s nothing here that can even remotely touch “Farewell Comrade”, there’s enough potential in the song’s three minutes and twenty seconds to get me very very excited about the Headteachers’ upcoming debut LP, You Took A Scythe Home, and very very frustrated that I can’t find the group’s debut single, “Fables”, anywhere. Hook a brother up in the comments if you’ve got “Fables”, otherwise just sit back and get your shit rocked by this incredible single, one of the year’s best, most mind-numbingly agressive tracks to date.

MP3: “Farewell Comrade” - Fury of the Headteachers ((highly recommended))

Considering that the band only has only released four tracks to date, I’ll point you in the direction of the band’s MySpace page to stream “Stumped” rather than making it available for download here, but if you find yourself waking up in a cold sweat in need of more Headteachers hotness you should check out two of the band’s demos I’ve dug up below. An August update on the band’s Myspace indicated that a mini-LP, You Took A Scythe Home, would be out on October 2nd, but that date’s come and gone with no word of a release and all signs indicate that Scythe’s been updated to full-fledged LP status and word is that it’ll now see a release early next year. “Farewell” is destined to be a definite centerpiece of the LP, and while “Stumped” has been confirmed as a non-album cut, there’s no word on what’ll happen to the three demos below so get them while you can.

Bonus MP3s:
“Life In Reverse” (Demo) - Fury of the Headteachers
“Whatever Does For You Will Do Me In” (Demo) - Fury of the Headteachers

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 11:49 am and is filed under Single Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.