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In a recent post on his social media account, Ginger Wildheart declared “Crazy day. Ended up in a pub. Bit pissed. I only play my own stuff when I’m drunk. Will report on my findings.” What followed was his brief musings on some albums from his past; the ‘Mutation’ album was described as “This one is fucking beautiful.” – and 2021’s ’21st Century Love Songs’ – the last studio album from The Wildhearts – according to Ginger, “This is a mad album. All over the place.”.
Not long after ’21st Century Love Songs’, The Wildhearts split again and the issue of whether fans would hear from them again was never in doubt; Ginger was always going to bring them back, but in what guise.
Fast forward to 2024 and Ginger announces that he’s putting the band back together: with new – but familiar – faces. Returning to The Wildhearts fold is Jon Poole on bass, and joining Jon is the baby-faced assassin Ben Marsden on guitars. With Carol Hodges helping out on backing vocals, there is a reunion of sorts of the line-up that backed Ginger up last year on his anything-goes acoustic tour, where if you didn’t leave with a beaming smile, were you really there? The well-travelled Charles Evans sits behind the drum kit for live duties on the impending tour.
With no studio output for a while now, this has been one of the longest periods without anything from the most prolific and vital songwriter in the UK. Having one of the most brutally honest social media feeds out there has given fans an insight into Ginger’s mental health struggles, and the last year or so has been positive, with Ginger getting help. Hence, this is the ideal time to deliver the 11th album from The Wildhearts ‘The Satanic Rites of The Wildhearts’, and, yeah, it is bloody magnificent.
With the album sleeve tipping a hat to the classic Wildhearts debut, ‘Earth vs The Wildhearts’, the warm feeling of familiarity is never that far from proceedings. The glorious hooks, the face-melting riffs, the shouty backing vocals, plenty of attitude, heaps of distortion, heaps of heartache (and heart) – this is unmistakably The Wildhearts and Ginger sounds reinvigorated and out to prove a point.
A few seconds into opening track ‘Eventually’ and it’s like welcoming home a long lost friend who went walkabout for a few years. A stunning combo of harsh, distorted vocals with hooks big enough to land Godzilla’s bigger brother. Thought-provoking lyrics “Listen to me, I guarantee, you’re gonna leave…eventually” on a gloriously catchy chorus, and then a few brief moments of spacey, tripped-out jamming before the harshness and sharp riffage come back in. Glorious stuff. This is a guitar-heavy album btw, with some gorgeous tones peppered throughout (‘Troubadour Moon’ immediately springs to mind and makes the listener turn to 2022’s Ginger Wildheart & the Sinners album for another fix).
So many highlights to drool over; the storytelling on the aforementioned ‘Troubadour Moon’ for one, and the false-ending that grows to a stunning conclusion on the same track is another; the vitriol on the SLF-tinged ‘Kunce’ where anyone who uses the word “Holibobs” is in the crosshairs (and rightly so); ‘Maintain Radio Silence’ packs thrash riffs with Beach Boys-like backing vocals and forms a powerful one-two with ‘Blue Moon Over Brinkburn’ where that teacher who uses the stereotypical “You’ll never amount to nothing…” gets both barrels; the lighter, heartfelt ‘Hurt People Hurt People’ is a fantastic antidote to the anger that comes before it with Ginger offering up some hope with “Hurt people hurt people, but I’m proof you can turn this around…”.
Ending with 2 tracks and 11-minutes of Wildhearts insanity in the guise of the sax-filled ‘I’ll Be Your Monster’ (sax courtesy of Shining/Emperor’s Jørgen Munkeby), and the 8-minute multiple-songs-within-a-song ‘Failure Is The Mother Of Success’ (even some Hawkwind-like spacey synth touches here and there), ‘The Satanic Rites of The Wildhearts’ is a resounding success and a staggering testament to the tenacity of one Ginger Wildheart. Yeah, it’s a mad album, but it is most certainly not all over the place. Wonder what Ginger will say about this one in a few years after a few bevvies?
Available March 7th via Snakefarm Records, pre-order HERE.
Review – Dave
All images – Andy Ford
The Wildhearts dates in full:-
March instore signing sessions
8th Relevant Records, Cambridge
9th HMV, Manchester
12th HMV, Newcastle
The Wildhearts UK Tour, March 2025
07th Leadmill, Sheffield
08th Junction, Cambridge
09th O2 Ritz, Manchester
11th Epic, Norwich
13th Garage, Glasgow
14th KK’s Steel Mill, Wolverhampton
15th Rock City, Nottingham
16th 1865, Southampton
May
04th Bonfest, Kirriemuir, Scotland
07th Wolf, Barcelona, Spain
08th Loco Club, Valencia, Spain
09th Nazca, Madrid, Spain
10th Psilocybenea, Hondarribia, Spain
24th The Big Yard Party, Old Woollen, Leeds
July
06th Time To Rock Festival, Knislinge, Sweden
25th Steelhouse Festival, Ebbw Vale, Wales
