Some of our more affluent readers may like to follow this sage advise – never get involved with a celebrity, you’ll only end up stalked daily by some gimp photographer from The Sun and getting your kids slapped about at school for having a shit hippie name. Everybody else should pay heed to the following – never get involved with Taff rogue Russell Toomey, he will hate every moment he spends with you, eventually bolt himself in a darkened room and write a song about you with the rusty poison-biro he probably keeps tucked behind his ear. My Red Cell are certainly the most lunatic bunch to career across the Severn Bridge since Mclusky, only rather than a relatively high-brow black humour countered by the muscle to match, this is all about the erratically explosive psychosis of the aforementioned Mr Toomey.
And when it hits, it hits hard and fast and decisively. He has a brimming, psychotic delivery that is impossible to ignore, reminiscent of a speeding Jack White smothered by Davey MacManus of past Welsh cult heroes The Crocketts in some rowdy bar after closing. And he barks some great vitriolic lines, heroic in their simplicity, pondering life, its larks and its losses: “Got a knife and I know how to use it / Got a knife and I know that he’s to blame” (‘In A Cage (On Prozac)’), which incidentally is just one of three songs here using a knife metaphor, “I’m a dirty dirty alcoholic, darling you’re my dirty wine” (‘Head In The Ground’), “You look pretty for a devil in a dress” (‘Me Look You Look’).
But hey, he wants to share all his hatred, which maybe hints at a strand of compassion. Amongst the scuzz-punk guitars and scrappy rhythms are some diamond-bright holler-along moments – take the wonderful “I never, never, never, never loved you boy” group-chorus of ‘Knock Me Down’ evoking the inclusive spirit, if not quite the style, of bands like the Dropkick Murpheys. Has to be said they do fall flat on their face on occasion, ‘Her Religion’ and ‘Tell Me Nice’ forget to use the simplicity to their advantage, lose their identity and just end up sounding like a bratty Judas Priest. Finishing off with ‘You Dumb’ (“we’ll burn the kids, we’ll burn the trees, we’ll learn to speak a little Japanese”) and ‘Fifty Quid’ ( “they’re dropping babies on their heads, they told my mother she was dead”) is enough to largely disguise the fact though. Buy this man’s records and keep him out of jail.