the return of frank carter

Jonny Elswood

"The drums, bass and guitars are all recorded live in one take. The vocals were mostly one take with the odd line added in when I forgot a line or couldn't breathe. We added minimal overdubs to keep the sound as raw and intentional as possible. I believe it is my best work, both lyrically and musically" - Carter

Rotten, the new EP from Frank Carter's new band The Rattlesnakes, is the latest instalment of a colourful, blood-spattered career.

It is the emphatic, vengeful resurrection of a demon, and a pinnacle of hardcore the likes of which the musicians of this country very rarely reach, and rarely want to.

Through his former band Gallows, Frank Carter punched a whole in the middle-class, millennial complacency of rock music after punk. Their music was a puncture in the biggest bottle of spirits in a pub long closed, and it received obsessive reverence from the press because of it. After a bizarre hiatus of touring with 80s power-chorders Pure Love over recent years, this new release is a very welcome return to form.

Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes are like The Sex Pistols on steroids, and that is not an overstatement. The band share the societal revulsion, the lyrical targets, and the musical fashion of their predecessors but the whole concoction is spiked with revitalised aggression, manifested most of all in faster, harder drumming and the instantly recognisable and subsequently unforgettable rage of Carter himself. With a voice that's hoarser and a little deeper than those already lining the punk-rock halls of fame, Carter adds to his partners' vicious rhythm sections to create for today's young people the shocking passion that punk first represented decades ago.

The best of the three tracks, Paradise, is a bombastic assault on organised religion, and it grips you from the beginning with a gorgeous, depleted riff. It speaks best for itself of course, and demands from music fans that are unacquainted with hardcore simply the thirty seconds it needs to turn a listener's music taste on its head.

Currently touring the length of the UK, Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes promise a blood-pumping, ear-aching performance unlike any other.