As anyone who witnessed A Tribe Called Quest booting a border wall to bits at the Grammys will attest, this is an unusually lively time for politically minded pop music of all stripes. Of course, the downside to such engagement is that for every Lemonade you’re likely to get 10 sixth-form common-room jam bands wailing about “TONY B-LIAR”. Dumb Blood, the debut album from London outfit Vant, unquestionably falls into the latter camp. Workaday nu-grunge in sound, it distinguishes itself from the pack with vocalist Mattie Vant’s toe-curlingly gauche lyrics: think Bush if Gavin Rossdale had skim-read Chomsky for Dummies in WH Smith before recording Razorblade Suitcase. Opener The Answer boils down the “special relationship” to the thoughtful couplet “You’re from England, well Hello there my brother / Keep sucking my dick, while my friend fucks your mother,” while Peace and Love only just falls short of calling for the world to sing in perfect harmony. “It’s time to wake up”, Vant wrote in a mission statement letter accompanying Dumb Blood’s release. If this is the soundtrack to the revolution, a lie-in looks preferable.
