Out of the dark depths arises Manchester’s favourite gutter-punks, THE BATTERY FARM. The group who exploded onto the Manchester scene with their Dirty Den’s March of Suffering EP and debut album FLIES are now back after two years with their second album, DARK WEB. Prior to the release of the album, the quartet have churned away four singles with such versatility and a maturer sense of writing and production.
The group are well known for their dark and gritty sound matched with lyrics of uncomfortable themes and dark undertones. Their words and sounds are pulled from the working class background and spat back at the state of the world today. The band has maintained the ferocity of their previous projects and removed any sophomore album jitters with a tightly packed half hour of pure punk dynamic.
Opening track UNDER THE BOMB, moves from erratic fuzz into a delicate acoustic rhythm. Frontman Benjamin guides you on the build-up, events and aftermath of a bomb explosion. There is distaste and bitterness in his voice while bass rings over the stripped back acoustics. The lyrics talk of risks and time running out and is a uniquely different sound from the group. Whilst it still harnesses those dark emotions, sonically it feels fresh and anxious for the rest of the album that’s about to hit us. It’s an unsettling intro song that is the only breather Battery Farm will allow on the album. The track is almost like tongue-in-cheek commentary on the idea of survival or idea of survival in such a situation. Before such an attack is reality you would have ideas of what to do, however when the reality hits, the idea of survival is nought but lost or perhaps pointless.
THE NEXT DECADES is that familiar gritty sound with littered effects over the guitars and Benjamin’s scratchy and angered vocals. The riffs are punk energetic punk with a wall of noise that grooves. It’s as if the bomb aforementioned has exploded and released The Battery Farm onto us. The bass guitars battles the guitars with its eccentrically speedy notes. Benjamin delivers a booming variety of vocals from a baritone wail that echoes Rammstein’s Till Lindemann; it’s a nightmarish feeling. The group has faced many blockades along the way when getting this album out into the public sphere, so this angry track is the perfect moment to let everything out.
HAIL MARY is a sadistic follow up with picking bass and crying guitar leads on top of rim smashing drums. This is the first look into The Battery Farm heading in a newer melodic direction. The sound is stripped back once more, the rhythms are what is pulling you in with the uncomfortable patterns and delivery from each instrumentation. Benjamin’s vocals are cleaner and the second verse pounds at you with the guitars scratchier and the snare hits fuller. The lyrics are harsh as many ironic Hail Marys are screamed out, Mary doesn’t want any part in this. The last minute of the track is a full of overdriven guitars, sonic bass guitar and preachy yelling. It’s another uncomfortable moment with eccentric instrumentation and explorative vocal deliveries.
O GOD was a single I had the pleasure of reviewing earlier this year and our first taste of the new Battery Farm material. The bass guitar in the verses is like a swaying lullaby on a branch that could snap at any moment. The chorus is a droning explosion of uncompelling anguish. Anguish is a theme felt a lot across Dark Web, a continues and conceptual darkness that follows the narrator as they go through each track. As aforementioned in my review of the track and after hearing the full record, a similarity I feel here in Dark Web is Dante’s Inferno. The subject in O God feels as though they’re falling with no resolve. This is felt in the back and forth of the music with the funk and groove of the verse like one stumbling into the over-distorted chaos of the chorus of hopelessness. It’s gritty and powerful.
The self-titled track DARK WEB is the most melodic piece on the record. A delightfully smooth guitar picking with gruff and emotive vocals. We’ve never heard the band sound this vulnerable, the almost absent drums are a backdrop to allow the bass to dance a solitary dance whilst the guitars cheekily check themselves out. Even when it feels like there’s moments where the expected Battery Farm is going to make an appearance, they are quickly shut out. This is a private party, perhaps in a forum and the only guests are melancholy. The closing moments see low piano notes hammered away and the drums filling in the absence they’ve suffered for two minutes. The questions of “Is this the final chapter?” ring a further familiarity felt in the track with nods to the end of the world and religion and death. There are a lot of themes at play here and you can find them all on the Dark Web.
STEVE’S ICES rings out a familiar synth sound heard on the group’s earlier works. The drum rolls and climbing bass explode into speedy beats whilst the synth or guitar effects are fought against. “The ice cream man commeth” confirms that this track is a reference to an ice cream driver. It’s a continuation of The Battery Farm’s storytelling that usually captures relatable and everyday characters in a dark working class world. It’s one of the darker moments on the album with guitar notes ringing out alongside the vocals before the bridge takes us on an explore 4/4 blast of punk. We all feel like we’re at Benjamin’s sermon as he delivers a eulogy on a town’s familiar character. The overall themes of track have the feeling of loneliness and failure and the hardships felt to someone in Steve’s position. A lot of the feeling is left to the layered guitars and use of erratic guitar effects.
ICICLES which is quite the aptly named follow-up track is one of the longest Battery Farm tracks. It’s one of the group’s most experimental and diverse tracks in terms of its versatile structure and offering. The nearly five minute piece starts off with interrupting and climbing bass over hyperactive drums. The guitars are a background force of dark noise with the vocals drowning within them. Benjamin progresses from sombre dark speaking into wailing clean vocals that fit the song perfectly, this irritated piece is of a different styling and doesn’t require the aggressive vocals. It’s an irritation that’s sly and builds up to emotive choruses and sonically-pleasing progression. The break sees familiar synth additions that feel like a ticking bomb over the simpler instrumentation. The vocals feel like someone talking to themselves alone with thoughts of death. All the energy builds up into the climaxing final minutes where the speed of the instrumentation is upped and the track finishes how it began.
JOHN BULL’S HARD TIMES is a battering ram of the scratchy distorted guitars and smashing drum notes. It’s The Battery Farm with another character playing on the themes of nationalism in the UK. It’s another tongue-in-cheek moment lyrically met with the brutality that The Battery Farm’s gutter punk sound has to offer. The track gives the feeling of metamorphosis setting in to the figure of John Bull as they falls on hard times and becomes a shell of their former glory. Its the grooviest moments on the albums as the group lets the instrumentation have fun and let’s the effected bass guitar take the front wheel to the outro.
IT’S A SHAME, THANKS A LOT is one of the latest singles from the album and delves back into the stripped back melodic side of the group. The piano’s play more of a forefront here and feels like we’re near the end of the sermon delivered on the Dark Web. The lyrics are dark and uncomfortable, but the music is moody and miserable that is a fitting mood. The intensity is felt in the bridge as the vocals become more angered and the background noise of guitar leads becomes harsher. It all feels so ironic that we were here in the first place. There was no saving the listener from the bomb mentioned in the opening moments. We have to live with the damage now. A somber piano plays us out.
AFTER THE BOMB is a return to the introduction but more absent and erratic in its intro. The steady acoustic is gone, the vocals are faster and less rhythmic, everything feels empty. The sigh into the instrumentation feels like time for one last hurrah. The grooving bass has been a great element throughout the album, like a sadistically cheerful fool that ignores the overall dark theme of the record. The Battery Farm guitarist Dominic is one of the most interesting guitars in the Manchester scene as he doesn’t just string some chords together. He experiments and delves into the potential sounds a guitar could make. The work of effects pedals and general faffing with the guitar creates such a unique sound and aura around the band’s sound.
After The Bomb is an explosive outro however, it’s a beast of noise unlike the intro. Here the bomb has happened and it feels as thought The Battery Farm is the victor in the situation, they wanted the fallout to benefit from. It’s a chaotic ending to a chaotic album.
The Battery Farm have produced a tight album clocking in just over 31 minutes. It’s expansive and varied and provides a new light on the progressive sounds and styles the band have been working on. The group will always have their ferocious and gritty sound, yet there are new lights in their melodies, songwriting and vocals. We see vulnerable moments of sincerity and simultaneously some of the angriest punk music you’ve ever heard. It may be the last great album we hear in 2024, but it has been well worth the wait to sum up a fantastic musical year. A continuous onwards an upwards to The Battery Farm who embark on their Dark Web tour in early 2025.
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