Album Review: Cock Sparrer - Hand On Heart
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
If Sparrer aren’t my favourite punk band, then they’re certainly in the top two; yet, for all their fifty-two years, and counting, the mainstream success that other bands of the era found has alluded them. What they do have, though, is near universal acclaim from all who know and have been influenced by them. And that list is long and distinguished.
Beginning life back in 1972 and influenced by the Pub Rock scenes of the 1960, Cock Sparrer – then called Cock Sparrow – is still made up of four friends from school who just wanted to play music; the current five-piece line-up have been working together since 1992.
For all their time together, a new Sparrer album is a bit of a rarity. Since the release of the self-titled back in 1978, Hand on Heart is only the eighth studio album of their career. This Tool-like aversion to recording had produced a small, but immaculate, discography and, if the talk around the water cooler is to be believed, and Hand on Heart is to be Sparrer’s swansong, then they are going out on a high.
Opening with the upbeat and self-empowering With My Hand on My Heart, we find the band picking up from 2017’s Forever album. Full sounding, traditional and with a positive message, this represents everything we love Cock Sparrer for. Mind Your Own Business goes for a heavier angle, using a gang vocal; while I Belong to You is a love song of sorts, demonstrating a vulnerability last seen in Forever’s Every Step of the Way.
No Way Out, Take it on the Chin and Nowhere to be Found has the band doing what they do best and delivering working class anthems, tailor-made for the live environment and ready to raise voices in every concert hall they play. The subject matter, as ever with the lads is reflective of life at the less-pleasant end of things, but with the reasoning that there is no point in bemoaning your lot; just get on with it and be accountable for your actions. Take it on the Chin even manages to include the line: “find your big boy trousers”, before smashing it with some fearsome riffs.
Rags to Riches has Sparrer looking to one of their musical heroes and finding inspiration in the work of the Small Faces, Colin McFaull’s vocal delivery accentuating the doggerel rhymes throughout. I’m probably going to knee-capped by the Skinnies at Rebellion for this, but there’s a definite Frank Turner sound to the chorus of One Way Ticket, while the rest of the tune shows a more expansive side to Sparrer.
Hand on Heart winds its way to an end with the mellow My Forgotten Dream and closes with what might be Cock Sparrer’s final words, on Here We Stand. Not only a harkening back to the band’s 2007 album of the same name, but also a companion piece to established set closer, We’re Coming Back. Just as with that tune from 1982, so Here We Stand is a confirmation of unity from the band to their fans; a statement of intent, if you will, for after the dust has settled and all that remains is the music.
If Hand on Heart is to be Cock Sparrer’s last album, then it is a wholly fitting coda for the band. A ten-song love letter from the lads to the fans, brimming with razor-sharp anthems and chest-beating pride, and never failing to delivery everything we want from a Sparrer album.
This is Punk Rock Royalty doing what they do at their absolute best. Bet it makes my Albums of the Year.
