Description

FOUR LETTER WORD have long been one of my favourite UK punk bands. Somehow or another, they manage to pull influence from all of my favorite punk subgenres – early 80’s hardcore, late 70’s UK punk and early 90’s, LEATHERFACE style UK punk – and merge them into this unholy beast of a sound. They don’t put out records too often and they don’t seem to tour too much but I have a feeling that’s more because of strict quality control than laziness. Every time I’ve gotten my hands on a new batch of FOUR LETTER WORD songs I’ve been newly amazed, and the moment I first dropped “Like Moths to a Flame” into my CD player was no different.
For those of you who have been fans of the band for some time, not too much has changed on “Like Moths to a Flame”. FOUR LETTER WORD still have that powerful, LEATHERFACE-esque guitar sound and Welly’s vocals are still as powerful and as melodic as Jake Burns’s without sounding at all like them. However, while all the things you already know and love about FOUR LETTER WORD are present on this LP, there are also some new bits as well. Most startlingly, there are a couple of straight-up hardcore songs on the record, most notably “Crisis of Faith” and “The Face of the Killer.” Welly has long sung the praises of the early 80’s hardcore scene in the pages of his fanzine Artcore, but these songs find FOUR LETTER WORD paying homage to that scene more blatantly than ever before.
Most of “Like Moths to a Flame”, however, is straight-up FOUR LETTER WORD. If you like the powerful, emotional UK punk scene of the early 90s (i.e. LEATHERFACE, SNUFF, HOOTON 3 CAR, BROCCOLI, etc.), you’ll probably like FOUR LETTER WORD; they have a similar way of balancing delicate melodies on top of impossibly powerful music.
Something also must be said about the booklet that accompanies this release, which is truly a work of art. The beautiful graphic design on the cover (which features colorful moths flying over aerial photography that seems to be from Iraq) will give you some idea that this is a high-quality affair, but even so you’ll be wowed when you open this thing up. The booklet begins with a list of the songs on the record and an accompanying quotation for each, ranging in authorship from Napoleon Bonaparte to Ian Mackaye. Then each song gets its own page in the booklet with a beautifully-designed background that collages together (and in some cases alters) old, World War II-era propaganda posters.
In summary, “Like Moths to a Flame” really is the total package, a brilliant collection of songs with a distinctive sound and packaging to die for. Why FOUR LETTER WORD aren’t one of the most famous and well-loved punk bands in the world I’ll never know, but just because you don’t see their logo on the back of every leather jacket in your town doesn’t mean you shouldn’t own this fucking beast of an album.