- Band named after weapons of mass destruction? Check.
- Band members wearing leather & band T-shirts? Check
- Songs about violence and suffering? Check
- Mix of thrash metal & hardcore punk crossover? Check
- Is it permanently 1988-90? Check
- Spiky mascot creature on cover? Check
- Pointy band logo? Check
- Incredibly long list of ‘thank you’s on the inner sleeve, most of them involving in-jokes? Check*
Let’s face it, this crew have got all the boxes ticked. How come I had to scrabble around on eBay finding this, their first LP? Why haven’t we all been out there buying lavish 7 disc deluxe box set versions of this album? because I think that the record buying public and critics are basically mowists**, all of them. In 1990 the world just wasn’t worthy to confront the majesty of Ooh Crikey, It’s … Lawnmower Deth. But who were these fine fellows from Nottingham?
- Qualcast Mutilator – Vocals
- Mr Flymo – Drums
- Concorde face Ripper – Guitars
- Mightymo Destructimo – Bass
- Schizophrenic Rotary Sprintmaster – Guitar
We’re not in the realms of the overly serious here. No, really! The music is very thrashy (Satan’s Trampoline), real hardcore punk at times too (F.A.T (Fascist & Tubby)) and very, very silly indeed (every single song here). Make no mistake behind the silly voices, sillier song titles and made-up names (I’m guessing)are four guys who really could play this type of music. Best times are those when they stop larking around and smash it up, like on ‘Rad Dude’. This is very, very definitely music for the ADHD generation, who hadn’t quite landed yet, so Lawnmower Deth ended up as prophets without honour in their own land, thrashing away like maniacs and doing silly voices to their hearts’ content.
Best song title? I’m torn between ‘Flying Killer Cobs From The Planet Bob’, ‘Sumo Rabbit & His Inescapable Trap of Doom’ and ‘Can I Cultivate Your Groinal Garden?’ – a straight three-way tie.
Best lyrics? This announcement about the lyrics of ‘Sharp Fucka Blades of Hades’:
Best Tracks? A longer answer needed here. Ooh Crikey, It’s … Lawnmower Deth has some great moments as well as a fair few that grate just as much now as they did in 1990. I’m a sucker for ‘Sheep Dip’, maybe it’s the mention of sheep that stir my Welsh heart, the fact that it’s not too many million miles away from being a very daft corollary to Pink Floyd’s ‘Sheep’ (I kid you not!)^^. At 3:23 it’s virtually their ‘Kashmir’ too, replete with different sections. In more serious hands this would have lent itself to a rant about society, exclusion (of lawnmowers) and alienation – this being we get a great stop/start section where people shout silly things; this makes it even better. Their twice-as-fast cover of ‘Motörhead’ shows exactly how tight a thrash band Lawnmower Deth were.
This is not an album to sit and listen to over and over again, try it with ‘Maim Mower Maim’ I dare you, although it’s a fun snack every so often. Therein lies their problem, strangely considering this was the group that titled a track ‘Got No Legs? Don’t Come Crawling To Me’, people didn’t take them seriously and after a while comedy records to tend to pale. They even moved into sounding more like a So-Cal style punk band after a while before breaking up, nasty. I do really love this album though, the idea of grown men coming together in the studio to create works of this childishness appeals – it must have been so much fun to do.
Basically Ooh Crikey, It’s … Lawnmower Deth is S.O.D filtered through, a gentler Viz Magazine^ sensibility and all the better for it. The whole album is full of very esoteric British references, hell I don’t get half of them and I live here, I guess chunks of it wouldn’t travel very well. Anyone who can diss straight-edge punk, thus is fine in my book:
No meat, no food, no sex,
You never get the opportunity to shop at Next,
You wish you were a big puffy glam,
Then you wouldn’t have to give a damn.
Then I could spray my hair,
About the ozone layer, I wouldn’t care.
I’ve really enjoyed listening to this one again and I can hear distant strains of it in my beloved Municipal Waste’s output, you wouldn’t want to spend every night on Satan’s trampoline, but there’s no harm having a good bounce around every now and then. Stick it to the mowists!
468 Down.
*for example … ‘Nick thanks: Tegsy ‘No Lager, Two Doughnuts’, Dave ‘Nosher’ Grimes, Sarah ‘Gandalf Ate Your Biscuit!’ Robinson’ … I made those up, but you know the sort of thing.
**Mowism consists of both prejudice and discrimination based in social perceptions of differences between lawnmowers and others. It often takes the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems that consider different methods of lawn control to be ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared traits, ability to collect cuttings, closeness of cut, or qualities. It may also hold that mowers and non-mowers should be treated differently.
^If you haven’t had the pleasure, foreign readers, Google it and all shall be revealed (basically a comic with lots of swearing in it).
^^All year long we get a rough deal,
Chewing at grass, enslaved in fields,
Mowers in jumpers we’re destined to be
Slaughtered and turned into Big Mac or Wimpey.
Lawnmower Deth? Oh my.
Hell yeah! Just booked in the for half-time show at the Super Bowl apparently.
Then this shall be the first Super Bowl I am remotely interested in.
I understand that the organisers felt that seeing the Deth perform ‘Duck Off’ and ‘Satan’s Trampoline’ would lend the event a rare dignity and gravity. True story.
PS. (which doesn’t make sense as the more recent comments are on top)
Could I hire you to write funny clever titles for my posts please? I’d pay in vinyl.
Thank you, its the bit i enjoy most along with adjusting the count and taking silly photos. A silly title will often spark a post idea.
Can’t believe I’ve missed this vital vinyl. Glad to hear (courtesy of HMO) that’s it has been re-released.
Every home should have one. I confidently predict that in the year 2525 (if man is still alive) whole future civilizations will be built around Ooh Crikey its … Lawnmower Deth!
I need consistency in my life. Don’t make me switch my reading habits to somebody else, like say for instance, 4723.
4723 is a shite blogger! Him and his crappy Lego!
I only stumbled across you trying to get to my fave cycling blog, BikeLadano.com
4723 doesn’t use Lego. He uses Mega Blocks.
I do actually find myself mixed up in Google searches with the NHL hockey player Mike Modano.
What’s with the name change? Did you change it back again?
I did, i was briefly 1538.5 in honour of a Blackfoot-related gift from Mr HMO. But i changed it back, i couldn’t handle it.
I’m glad you changed it back. It was a real honour but I’m not sure I could handle the responsibility of altering history so irrevocably.
I was worried that some of my more rabid fundamentalist fans, the 1537 ultras, might persecute you for it.
Am listening to Tomcattin’ now and feeling very manly!
Tomcatttin’ is their manliest album I reckon.
If only there was a grizzly bear i could wrestle around here!
He told us about that in an email 🙂 I knew you were getting it!
Haha Mr 1538.5! Can’t believe you changed your name on my account. You really were serious about marrying me!?
Ooh Lawnmower Deth. I did find them amusing at the time (along with Metal Duck) but never checked them out properly. Actually this album just got reissued recently so the mowists have been defeated for the meantime.
Totes serious!
LD had the chops too, bit like Acid Reign. Good one to own this, along with Metal Duck’s Duck ’em All. They Dont make albums like that anymore!
They certainly don’t! Might be one for me to pick up at some point but I dunno… It’s pretty far down a long list.
BAHAHA Mr 1538.5, I presume…:)
I changed my name, over night, in honour of a present Scott sent me!
But, point 5?? Half an LP, natch?
Yup, a single! So it should probably have been about 1538.656, but lets not get pedantic!!
Normal service now resumed.
Aw, that’s great. We have such thoughtful friends!
One more question though: what is that contraption in your garden shed that “mows and vacs”? A lawn mower that vacuums too?
Yup, it stops my carpets getting too long!