Flag Burner – American Anymen (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

One of the things which speaks volumes about just how much the world has changed over the last generation is when you are reading the comments of an on line discussion and some one posts something along the lines of “musicians should stay out of politics.” Surely the whole point of art in general and music in particular is to comment on the world around you. Yes, of course you can make throw away dance tunes and music that ticks aesthetically pleasing boxes, but equally valid is music as a soapbox, a platform from which to add to the social and political dialogue, to unite and energise or confront and accuse as you see fit.

With Flag Burner, American Anymen does just that, their disapproval of the current US administration and its controversial leader is never in any doubt. But ever since troubadours and folk musicians wandered between European inns spinning yarns about revolts, since revolutionary marching songs fired up the discontented masses and through to the likes of punk agitators and modern day musical commentators, it is a role that music has always played.

American Anymen play a staccato guitar music, restless, agitated, edgy and angst infused, it links the more articulate side of the British punk movement with the jittery, post-punk of the likes of Talking Heads and reflects the no holds barred observations of the likes of Sleaford Mods. American Anymen, whether they are aware of it or not, join a vague movement which is seeing a return to music as a flash point for debate and rally, one connected less by the actually music they make but more a return to the realisation of the power that a band and their songs can have, should they only chose to embrace that path.