The Levellers – A Weapon Called the Word (1990)

Apparently The Levellers was quite a big deal here in UK at some point, but I only heard of this band a couple of years ago. I listened to a couple of their songs on Spotify and liked what I heard, so I did the thing I usually do with any 90's bands that I discover and like. I went to see how cheap their CDs would be online. This time, it was even cheaper than I could have imagined. I bought the band's two first albums with a combined price of about three pounds. I have been more into the second album, Levelling the Land, but now that I'm listening to this debut album of theirs, it actually sounds pretty good. The Levellers' first albums are quite political in their lyrics and the sound is like the celtic version of the band James. I do enjoy especially the fiddle playing on these albums a lot. There's also kind of a punk rock attitude on these albums which fits well together with the political lyrics.



This album sounds hopelessly out of date. The studio technique of the time makes this album sound almost like a live album. The echoes are uncontrollable and sometimes the backing vocals are drowning the individual instruments. The lead vocalist is not a very talented singer. Nevertheless, I do enjoy these songs quite a lot. It's very honest kind of music with excellent melodies and interesting lyrics.

I also started listening to this band's later albums, but I found that the later albums didn't really work as the sounds became too clean and polished. This type of music works the best when it sounds raw. So, whatever bad things I said about the production in the previous paragraph, is probably still the best way to go when it comes to a band like this.

There seem to be a couple of clear hit songs on this album. To be fair, i don't know if they actually are hit songs, but they stand out to me from the other songs. These songs are Carry Me and Barrel of the Gun. Both of these songs are mainly acoustic sounding songs, but there are some great and catchy melodies that make them stand out. The harmonica and fiddle in Carry Me sound outstanding along with the raspy vocals. I also really like the bonus track Cardboard Box City - live version at the end of this album. This is the true political jewel of this album, talking about the working class areas of London.

Later on, The Levellers have worked together with Frank Turner, a folk punk artist that I really like as well. I guess there are strong similarities between them. Both are quite political and both use folk sounds on top of punk rock rhythms. Here's a music video of their collaboration.

I feel like it is difficult to truly appreciate a band that I've found so late from their golden times, but I am happy to be a bit wiser in my pop music history along with this kind of music and I truly enjoy listening to these songs. Sounds like they would've been great live back in the day.

Listen to the album on Spotify.