Citizen Fish, Free Souls in a Trapped Environment CDR

To my mind Citizen Fish are the best band to survive the death of the anarcho-punk genre. Whilst Conflict are still plugging away and Rudimentary Peni release something once in a blue moon, Citizen Fish manage to retain all the political ideals from the Subhumans but translate them (via the dub-reggae interlude Culture Shock) through ska-punk into something truly original and inspirational.

"Free Souls in a Trapped Environment" is the best of the Citizen Fish releases in my mind. It is still a slight hangover from Culture Shock and has some reggae songs ("Charity"), some great punk tunes ("Paint", "Talk is Cheap") and the rest are awesome ska tunes that are played so manically yet sound so brilliant it makes your mind dribble ("Get of the Phone" and the truly superb "Experiment Earth" with the classic line "technology ran the human race/the humans finished last"). It's long for a Citizen Fish album, weighing in at over 45 minutes but it's well worth it. Admittedly, the production isn't as sharp as on other releases (notably "Life Size" and "Deadline" although "Active Ingredients" is quite good) but in my eyes this adds to the great character of the album. And at any rate, the last few songs (from "Get off the Phone" [track 10] to "Charity" [track 13]) are the best ending to any album since Crass's "Feeding of the 5,000." It's got some absolutely mind-blowing lyrics and social commentary whilst having something dance-able and listenable.

Now you may be thinking "but it's way overpriced at £50+" and you'd be right. Due to Citizen Fish's earlier underground history the original CDs are hard to come by. Fortunately in all their wisdom they've recently released some CDRs which, by my experience are just as good as they look and sound the same, minus some dodgy photocopies for booklets. That said, they only cost £3 or so and are well worth it. Genuinely astounding music from Dick and the gang. It's just a shame they don't play more of it live (choosing to play more recent releases, which is fair enough really). For fans of any sort of punk, ska, rock - or whatever sub-genre it is these days - this album is an absolute essential. Insightful, thoughtful, funny, varied and not preaching down the long end of a sermon. One of Citizen Fish's finest hours (and believe me, they've had a few!).