Fat White Family – Champagne Holocaust

Fat White Family hail from Brixton and have gathered a lot of attention because of their offensive lyrics and their so called deadbeat look. Frankly, they are what bands always used to look like when starting out. Skint. All the best bands have been on the breadline at some stage so here’s hoping are another one.

The album opens with Auto Neutron, which, for our money is the standout track. The genius of this song lies within Saul Adamczewski’s guitar playing. Adamczewski has all the rock psyche skills of Hookworms’ MB but also has a rhythm similar to Wave Pictures David Tattersall, both of which never lose sight of a good melody when letting loose. 



It’s not all about Adamczewski’s axe skills though. The vocals, especially on ‘It’s Raining In Your Mouth’ are the definition of cool. They combine the ‘I’m not bothered’ attitude of Johnathon Richman with a throatier version of Lou Reed. Bliss!

Another part of their charm is the outrageous lyrical content. Many articles have pinned them down as anarchists or intentionally antagonistic. For our money, they are just a bunch of mates with dark humour pissing around. Why else would you accuse Bobby Davro of shooting Lee Harvey Oswald? 

Throughout the album there are nods to Iggy (Wild American Prairie) and The Velvet Underground. Many attempt to use these icons as influences but few succeed. With Fat White Family though, you get the impression their influences are going to change like the wind as the years roll on by. Their ramshackle approach gives you a sense they are willing to try and do anything that they are into, it just so happens they have framed the majority of this album in this context. ‘Borderline’ and ‘Garden Of Numb’ are prime examples of this. Rather than continue down the road of Iggy and the Velvets, they sound like recordings made at 3am in a squat. The confidence to commit this kind of track to record is to be lauded in an epoch of short lived careers. If more bands could exhume this breed of self-determination then the British rock scene would undoubtedly become centre of the world again.