The System. A very special band indeed. Fair enough the name is a little strange, if not eyebrow-raising, and whereas I feel like I am the coolest cat in the neighbourhood when I am wearing my The System shirt, passersby look mightily unimpressed ("The system? Well, what about it? Does this prat think he incarnates the System?" I hear them think) definitely because they can't be arsed to spot "is murder" at the bottom and not because I am well into my forties, am about as unthreatening as a 5 year old and yet still believe I'm gonna make it in the wrestling business. But then I often treat them with Coitus or Genital Deformities shirts so I suppose they are also relieved that, for once, my great clothing style does not cause property values to drop. Oh well. I live in social housing so I really don't care.
One of my fondest memories of The System was when my best mate and I, admittedly very drunk, blasted the Thought Control Lp at full volume in the middle of the night many moons ago and started dancing around the coffee table in the living room in some sort of crusty danse macabre, singing along to the brilliant tunes like tuneless crows and clapping our hands like foolish happy seals. Because that's what really set The System apart from a lot of their anarchopunk peers in the 80's: the bloody great punk tunes. Of course the anarcho wave was replete with bands using tunefulness and melodies to get their point across but what worked so well with The System was that they borrowed theirs from the first wave of UK punk rather than poppier stuff like Zounds or Lost Cherrees for instance. I first ran into this Wigan-based act (up North, a name made famous by Orwell) through the aforementioned Thought Control Lp that I ordered directly from the Skuld Releases website sometime in the early/mid 00's. I trusted the label like a skinhead trusts his braces: faithfully. I expected Skuld Releases to deliver and it almost always did although on paper it was odd to see the label release in 1997 an Lp recorded in 1983 by a British anarchopunk band. Needless to say that it was great to be able to say that I technically owned an original record of this beloved wave of mine. That was well before I sold a kidney in order to buy the original pressings of their Ep's. Throught Control provided ace punk songs to sing along to and it sounded like the ideal break from all the dark crust that was omnipresent then.
As I alluded to, The System took their sense of tunes and catchy songwriting from the so-called '77 wave, something guitar player Andy clearly points out in The Day the Country Died. Whereas many anarcho bands from 1981 on started out influenced by Crass and their early followers, The System had been playing together since 1980 and the members had all been dicking around in bands since 1978 so that a large part of their influences, in terms of melodies and versatility and impeccable hooks and catchy compositions, can be located in bands like Slaughter and the Dogs, Crisis, Menace or The Ruts. And of course, the band remained gritty too, and on that level there is also something of the Upstarts in The System, and of course, it is undeniable that when they quickly got to tour regularly with bands like Flux of Pink Indians and the Crass Records crew the band also conveyed a tribal anarcho vibe and the appropriate politics. The System stands as one of these rather rare anarchopunk bands that can appeal to any punk-rock lovers. The music offers tuneful anthems you can sing along to in the shower (you don't actually have to shower, just being in the bathroom works just as well), it sounds aggressive enough to please your average UK82 believer and they have that melancholy, moody atmosphere that will speak to the vegan anarcho crowd and . In the end, just fantastic catchy punk-rock with a message.
The Warfare Ep was released in 1982 on Spiderleg Records, the label run by Flux of Pink Indians (The System's drummer would actually record the song "Tapioca sunrise" with Flux later on) notorious for releasing records by Subhumans and Amebix, and it includes three memorable punk songs produced by Penny Rimbaud, an unbeatable clue that it will have that typical "anarcho sound" that we've grown to associate with that scene. Opening with, arguably, the band's most iconic anthemic number "Dogs of war" with its infectious, boisterous chorus, the Ep has one of my all-time favourite anarchopunk songs: "Their corrupting ways". With its dark guitar leads, its hypnotic bass lines and its potent, passionate chorus, it is the perfect 80's blend of angry old-school punk-rock and postpunk. There are few punk songs that I consider perfect in the sense that they could not be better and I would not change anything about them (Demob's "No room for you", Naked's "Mid 1930's" and The Samples' "Dead heroes" are other significant examples) and "Their corrupting ways" is one of them. The very Flux-ish third song "Nervous breakdown" is another definite win of course with its heavy tribal rhythms (they did love those beats back then) and its simple structure and riffs, just a good way to make The Warfare stand out among the dozens of UK punk records released in 1982. And let's not forget the great artwork with several paintings (and the traditional foldout poster) illustrating the themes of the songs and, while they are no Otto Dix, they absolutely scream "1980's" and look sincere and original. Great stuff. The next year saw the release of the Is Murder Ep, another stellar punk Ep but I do prefer their first one.
This copy has some patent surface noise so you've got the full English breakfast here. The band's first Ep's and a full demo can be found on the ...Is Still Murder reissue on Overground Records that is still available (on vinyl, the 2005 cd version with additional songs, among which a song from The Insane (!) by mistake, is of course out-of-print. The band is still going, albeit in a different version, and still really good by the way.
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