Arctic Reviews

In a world whereyour average rock star considers flying in a thirty two piece orchestra from Tokyo as contributing to a protest about the environment, the story of Chard Urmston and his former band Dispatch makes for double-take listening. Formed in Massachusetts in the mid-90's, their brand of stylistic open-mindedness mixed folk, rock, and reggae whilst toting a state of political consciousness only usually found in radical hip-hop or hardcore punk. Obscurity for this career choice normally beckons. But by enouraging - you heard right - the distribution of their message and their music through the much reviled file sharing networks, they subsequently created a following which led to sales of almost 600,000 thousand records from outside of the corporate machine. When the band - Urmston, Brad Corrigan and Pete Francis Heimbold - announced that they were splitting up in 2002, they held a benefit concert at which even to their surprise a mere 110,000 people showed up.

Urmston now fronts State Radio and plays alongside bassist Chuck Fay and drummer "Mad" Mike Najarian. Based on my research and the cover photo, which depicts a bunch of nightstick toting riot police, I was expecting a racket falling somewhere between Conflict and Black Uhuru, but instead I found something far more loose limbed. Opener Mansin Humanity, is downbeat, sprawling and rockist, whilst by contrast the following Calling All Crows is built around a satisfyingly lilting ska chug, itself a call to arms for Stoke's community outreach program of the same name.

The problem is that although it's not either preachy or polemical, perhaps it should be. And musically it's just not epic, angry or dystopian enough. The trio are very capable of fire, as the rousing punk overtones of Arsenic and Clover and the title track demonstrate. But the brimstone, words such as "Another Butto assassination, could've stopped Sarajevo we must confess, but we were planning our next invasion" of Bohemian Grove, is frequently undermined by less than exceptional backdrops. Perhaps Stokes sees any requirement to deliver any theatre as pandering to the weaknesses of our mass (Un)consciousness, window dressing for the Wal-Mart nation. But I disagree, and when on Still & Silent he actually goes all Pearl Jam on our ass and rocks out, it's State Radio at by far their most effective.

Late in 2008 the rules of game of course changed with the demise of the Bush administration. Not of course that the rot of eight years of moral turpitude in US politics is going to be undone any time soon, but the simple act of berating Americans for having the wit to make obvious choices is now one with slightly lesser relevance. True it's not like State Radio have nothing left to protest about, but their altruism always had more edge when the oppression surrounding them was home-made. Now lacking an establishment to be their enemy, the band's status as latter day saints may rightly be assured. But whilst the American Idiot generation seems more willing than ever to embrace their uber-liberal philosophy, their message sadly is infinitely more inspiring than their music.