ALBUM REVIEW: Meatraffle – Base & Superstructure

Blang

Released 29.09.23

Coming live and direct from a secret Brixton bunker, firing brass, bass and barbed lyrics at the Babylon capitalist head, the third Meatraffle album is an absolute gem. Like predecessor Bastards, this is another jumble sale of colliding styles that shouldn’t work but does, brilliantly. Revolutionary socialism, class war and petty crime never sounded so appealing (“Why do I always bring class into it? It’s coz the people in the lower classes suffer most innit”, Zsa Zsa Sapiens explains).

It’s funny as fuck, of course, but deadly serious, and as dub basslines, wonky dance grooves, triumphant brass and the rest combine to fantastic effect on tracks like the self-celebrating Smallest Gang and the anthemic, Cloudy Truffles-voiced Mannaggia La Miseria, you can’t help but raise your fist in solidarity.