Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes

Photo credit: Wizard Radio.

During the time when my A-levels were staring to pick up, and the stressful process of submitting a UCAS application was becoming a tense affair, I went through a phase of listening to full-bodied and extremely hard-hitting punk rock bands such as Slaves and Gnarwolves. Upon discovering Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, I went to my local HMV store and purchased their debut album Blossom two days later. It was refreshing to hear powerful lyrics with a hint of the British accent creeping through heavily distorted guitar riffs. Conjure up meaningful lyrics and you have yourself a fantastic punk song – this is something the band do extremely well.

Frank Carter and his band are an exuberant bunch; during a BBC Radio 1 (and probably all their other gigs), Carter openly invited any willing members of the audience on stage, insisting that the band’s stage is the audience’s stage also. The band are all about creating an impenetrable atmosphere, as highlighted by Carter’s leaps into the audience and prevalent ‘crowd walking’. It’s very common at a Frank Carter gig for the vocals to become lost in the sheer chaos of what’s occurring on and off stage. If this kind of gig is something that excites you, I strongly suggest watching some live videos online.

In terms of their music, they’ve released two successful studio albums – Modern Ruin only released this year – that have cemented respectable positions on UK chart positions. This is formidable for a band that create music that hasn’t been considered to be ‘popular’ by the general audience for some time. Could it be that British bands such as Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and Slaves are reviving the hardcore punk genres that American bands such as Ramones and Black Flag made so prominent?