I’ve always loved an album that has a song named after the band – and when it’s the title track as well, even better. After all, if it was good enough for Iron Maiden then… well, you get the idea.
It’s a statement of intent, a flag planted firmly in the ground. And Rifle waste absolutely no time telling you exactly who they are and what they’re about.
Another London mob, Rifle basically want to fight. MV caught them opening for The Chats last year and we said at the time: “With vicious punk that seems ready to cheerfully kick your face in, tracks like ‘Warfare’ fully deliver on their ‘anarch-oi’ tag.” Listening to this debut full-length – spoiler alert, it clocks in at a breathless 23 minutes – there’s absolutely nothing here to change your mind.
“Rifle” opens like a starting pistol. Punk is a broad church – from Green Day to Discharge – but Rifle get off some serious rounds straight away. There’s an air of violence running through “No King”, where “look at me again I’ll spit in your face” isn’t so much sung as sneered. “Soldier Doll” might be the closest this record ever gets to a love song, and even that’s said through gritted teeth.
There’s groove buried in the grime too. “The Flag Protest” has a filthy boogie lurking underneath the bile, while “Cease and Desist” delivers a genuinely nightmarish change of pace – a track that feels shaped by its environment as much as its anger, slowing the momentum just enough to make the menace hit harder. It’s unsettling rather than explosive, and all the more effective for it. “Worthless”, featuring Chisel, is a standout: pure street-level punk with its struggles laid bare. “Bastards” is perfect punk – short, sharp, and furious.
Elsewhere, “fuelled by war, greed and hate” does more to sum up Trump-era politics in two minutes and eleven seconds than any amount of lily-livered, cow-towing commentary ever could. It’s a line that cuts right to the bone, and music like this simply doesn’t get made without that anger bubbling over.
By the time “Gauntlet of Hate” rolls around you’ve been bludgeoned for the best part of 20 minutes, and the closer almost feels prog by Rifle standards – three minutes of fuzz, noise and barely concealed torment.
This isn’t easy listening, nor is it trying to be. Instead, “Rifle” is part catharsis, part shock therapy. Let freedom ring with a Rifle blast and a whole lot of invective.
RATING: 8/10
