Globalise this!
Globalization
Insurge
Chatterbox/Phantom Records
Order at <http://www.insurge.com.au>.
REVIEW BY SEAN HEALY
There have been plenty of bands who've been radical and angry in their early albums, only to turn to mush. Insurge aren't among them — even the title of their new album, Globalization, is a dead giveaway that they're still on track and still angry.
"We rejected this 'music and politics don't mix' thing", the band's singer, Chris Dubrow, told Green Left Weekly the day after an energetic launch at Sydney's Excelsior Hotel. "That's bullshit, anyway. The mainstream is political, it says that life is about just being a consumer. We wanted to do something against that."
The new album is definitely "something". It's combative and it's passionate and it tears pieces off the corporate machine in whatever manifestation it takes: the Olympics ("Sydney 2000 Toxic Sludge"), fossil fuels ("Talk of the Sun"), "free trade" ("Winners"), politicians ("Power") and economists ("Economist King").
"We picked the theme, globalisation, a year or two ago when the term wasn't so well-known", Dubrow relates. "But then there were the protests in Seattle and Washington and everybody started to talk about it. What we wanted to say was that globalisation, the technological and communications revolution, it was bypassing the Third World, all it was was the 'CNN effect'. The media bypasses the real issues and all we get is the Hollywood version."
The band's concern for the Third World is obvious: one of the album's most striking singles rings, "So you think $300 is what it's worth to take a Third World life/ we'll take you down, we'll break you/ Happy Birthday, Union Carbide".
According to Dubrow, the concern is deliberate. "The broad left has been very focussed on local and national issues. What we're saying is, now look at the global system. The worst crimes, they're in the Third World: in West Papua, the Philippines, by mining companies and people like that."
Just as obvious is their commitment to encouraging activism. The album includes, for example, a hymn to environmental direct action, "Lock On" ("lock on, your will is strong/ lock on, can't be undone/ lock on, we're having so much fun/ lock on"). The credits run not only to musical collaborators and friends, but to Noam Chomsky, Reclaim the Streets and "the guy who writes 'shut up and shop' everywhere". The album gives the web sites of five anti-corporate and activist groups.
Dubrow says the new album has re-energised the band. Globalization is the first album the group has produced for three years, a lean spell they hadn't expected. "We all thought the ideas would just come together, but they didn't. We wanted to be original and to be pushing forward but found it difficult to write stuff we were happy with."
A couple of new players, a fresh, collective approach to song-writing and a bit of extra political inspiration seem to have done the trick, though. The sound is hard and loud and fast but it also has some innovative mixing and programming set into it, which gives it a modern, polished feel. The two percussionists, Sean Burnett and Daryl Sims, play well off each other, to excellent effect.
The band is touring, from Sydney to Brisbane and the Gold Coast on August 4-5, to Melbourne on August 19-20, and then to Adelaide and parts beyond. Buy the album, go to the gig.