It’s been a while since I’ve written an album review. Yesterday I skimmed back through a few of my masterpieces and jesus christ, most of them were so bad they made my head hurt. My first review on here (Disorder – The Singles Collection) is as stupidly, dramatically poetic as something Edgar Allan Poe would write while senile and on the other end of the spectrum, 35% of all my writing comprises either swear words, or just anything else of the ‘completely profane and pointless’ sort. Although the latter fact is unlikely to change I’m going to university next week (NB: I’m already at university now because I took so long to finish this), so it’s on my to-do list to write something that isn’t utterly vomit-inducing before I start (didn’t quite make that one). And as if this isn’t challenging enough, I thought it’d be a brilliant idea to choose the best punk album ever made to review today.

The first thing I need to tell you is that I really do love The Damned’s debut album, Damned Damned Damned (1976), although it has been argued in retrospect that it feels quite ‘one-dimensional’, on behalf of guitarist Brian James’ heavy influence on its songwriting. Now, the term ‘one-dimensional’ seems incomprehensible when hearing Damned Damned Damned for the first time because the entire album is completely mental, but when The Damned came out with their second album Music For Pleasure (1977), the term seemed more feasible: the album proved that the initial format of The Damned was going stale. So Brian James left the band after writing the best punk debut of all time, he let everyone else in the band have a go instead.

And like the first chapter of a great novel, Machine Gun Etiquette (1979)’s opener Love Song introduces each element of The Damned and their new and improved line up, starting off with Captain Sensible’s promotion up to lead guitar, which really leaves you wondering – why the hell did he ever play bass? Sensible’s multicoloured, writhing riffs have a life of their own, assuredly carving his way through Rat Scabies’ maniacal cymbal smashing, Algy Ward’s big bass hook and Dave Vanian’s matured, velvet vocals, which work to soothe the musical storm into some obedience. While Love Song is an entire album’s worth of content in one track, I Just Can’t Be Happy goes further to introduce the first goth-inked tones associated with The Damned’s later albums; through all the organ synths, sombre vocals and chaotic rolls and crashes emerges the baroque gloom associated with their later albums. The piano continues into Melody Lee which is the closest The Damned get to a ‘ballad’, but without the mindless simplicity, and with a fuck-ton more speed, cymbals, and distortion… Ladies and gents: this is The Damned in 1979, and they’re as five-dimensional as it fucking gets.

But have no fear folks – despite The Damned’s new ridiculous eloquence, they certainly haven’t forgotten where they came from, and that they were one of the few bands that invented punk. The album’s title track Machine Gun Etiquette channels their debut’s raw energy with cruder vocals (featuring Joe Strummer and Mick Jones who I think, happened to be recording for The Clash at the same time nearby) and bulleting pace, while Antipope feels more ‘classic punk’ with Algy’s big bassline, Scabies’ (relatively!) pared back drumming and Vanian’s gleeful deliverance of unambiguously anti-establishment lyrics. I wouldn’t relax just yet however, because I don’t know how many punk songs you know that include an extended bongo/maraca interval… it’s clear to me that The Damned doesn’t suffer from any genre dictation. Every move is unpredictable, and you can sense this ‘loud and proud’ liberation through Side B’s Noise Noise Noise and Liar, which are their own quick, buoyant, whistling, zany riots.

The dusky, night-train guitar introduction signals that we’ve arrived at Plan 9 Channel 7. Smooth and languid in its candlelit melancholy, this song illuminates every part of the head when you sit down and listen to it; and you know trust the ribbon flow of Scabies’ silvery ticks and low rolls, Sensible’s velvety riffs and Vanian’s deep croons. Each instrument is part of the conversation, and they weave together seamlessly – despite the complexity of each member’s playing – into a song that every arts student with a fringe should be fainting over. It’s been years, and I’ve never been able to shake the beauty of this song. Time, nor the needle, can ever dull the brilliance of Plan 9 Channel 7.

And like the last chapter of a great novel, Smash It Up leaves us with what we began: an opulent punk saga, coursing with all the zeal, pride and delight of a band who just wrote, completed and released the most accomplished punk album of the decade. The Damned shows us in Machine Gun Etiquette that they’re gifted with giving us everything at once, wings outstretched, but with each feather perfectly in focus – and that’s happened at the hands of each member. With Brian James breaking up the band in 1977 after a second album that left punk critics questioning punk’s longevity, and the rest of the band’s decision to carry on without their ringleader two years later, I think this all can be summed up with the phrase: “one step backward and two steps forwards”.