While Gallows plough on with their pan-scouring hardcore barrages regardless, all eyes are on the fate of their charismatic dervish of an ex-frontman Frank Carter and his new Brooklyn-based collaboration with The Hope Conspiracy’s guitarist Jim Carroll.
Formed on Valentine’s Day 2011, their moniker suggested the tattooed wild child had undergone a laughable romantic softening akin to a rabid pitbull getting dewy eyed at a Richard Curtis movie. But Anthems is the proof, songs of “love and death and sex” sung – sung! – by Carter in doe-eyed emo boy-band style, laced with Manics crunch by Carroll and arena-scented by Foo Fighters producer Gil Norton.
It’s staggering to hear such an uncompromising soul deliver Beach Of Diamonds like a slab of Jimmy Eat World pop, make a punk-pop rabble-rouser out of the London riots on Riot Song or croon like Billy Joe Armstrong through Handsome Devils Club and the torch-rock title track, but kudos to Pure Love for taking a ludicrous concept of comedy commercialism and successfully straightening its face.
