Album Review: Angelic Upstarts – Teenage Warning [Orange Gatefold Edition]
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Having already reissued Angelic Upstarts’ debut album on an expanded compact disc format last year, Cherry Red and their punk imprint, Captain Oi! have given Teenage Warning its first official vinyl release since the limited-edition picture disc appeared in 2007.
Pressed on orange vinyl and packaged in a gatefold sleeve, this version will include an inner sleeve featuring lyrics, liner notes and memorabilia from the era.
Produced by Sham 69’s Jimmy Pursey, Teenage Warning was released in 1979 and was a powerful new punk voice, emerging from the broken industrial heartlands of the English north-east. Angelic Upstarts found instant success as their raw examination of the state of the nation spoke to the disenfranchised and the disaffected generation, already roused by the Sex Pistols, The Stranglers and The Clash.
Teenage Warning would ultimately reach number 25 in the album charts and boasted two reasonably successful singles, in the form of I’m an Upstart and Teenage Warning, which reached numbers 31 and 29 respectively. The fresh new voice of revolution called for the whole system to be torn down and started afresh, those anarchistic themes being replicated in every groove.
The Clockwork Orange reference in the title track, along with the gang vocals and simple street punk riffs, brim with anger and angst; the mocking of faux-activism and empty indignation drives the acerbic Student Power, and Small Town, Small Mind begins at a slow and steady tempo, increasing its speed and it grows in outrage, but has the catchiest of riffs.
![Album Review: Angelic Upstarts – Teenage Warning [Orange Gatefold Edition]](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/65535/53692284065_065b29ace5_c.jpg?w=678&ssl=1 "Album Review: Angelic Upstarts – Teenage Warning [Orange Gatefold Edition]")
Both We the People and the Dropkick Murphys-covered Never Again have distinctive vibes of The Clash going on, the latter addressing a dark theme with a lightness of touch and a solo that belies the simplicity of the genre’s perception. We the People seems to have one foot firmly planted in the early parts of the decade, with Ray Cowie bending strings like he’s Jimmy Page.
Do Anything, Let’s Speed and Leave Me Alone show a snottier punk attitude, relying heavily on the bass to create anarchy, yet all have their own charm and individual way of approaching the genre.
A cover of Cliff Richards’ The Young Ones, which was the B-side of the Teenage Warning single, is tackled in the usual Angelic Upstarts irreverent manner, but it’s Liddle Tower, sitting at the end of side one that really finds the Upstarts at their most caustic. Concerning the mysterious death in police custody of the titular Mr Tower, the band deliver the most emotive tune of the album. Ghostly voices and mournful guitars pre-empt the rage fuelled invective as vocalist, Mensi, unleashes an angry tirade.
One of the last times I saw the Angelic Upstarts, at North West Calling in 2018, the band played Teenage Warning in its entirety and, although nearly forty years had passed, it was still as powerful that day as it was when it came out. Years after that show, and Teenage Warning feels like it has taken on a whole new life in the light of subsequent events.
Sadly, the ever-present Thomas Mensforth – aka Mensi – was lost to Covid in December 2021, but his legacy and passion live on in his music, and no more is it evident than on this punk milestone.
Be the first to comment