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The road taken by Charred Hearts to get to the point where an album saw the light of day is a meandering one, as is often the way. A bunch of young punks in the early eighties called The Corpses had evolved into Charred Hearts and just as things were on the up for them for whatever reasons took, in their own words " a prolonged tea break of about 15 years" Returning to the scene older and hopefully wiser just as the time came to enter the studio to capture their music on record for the first time, guitarist Pat Luszcz decided to quit the band. Most bands would have been devastated by this event, but it is a testament to their professionalism that they just rang up an old friend to step into his shoes and allow the studio sessions to go ahead. The result is The Triumph and The Tragedy.

Before punk music evolved into a style over substance, identikit, uniformed fashion cult, it was a brash yet melodic soundtrack to the trials and tribulations of peoples lives. Before it became about vague statements of saving the planet and smashing the system, it had something to say that most people could relate to and take solace in, and there is a lot in singer Dermot's lyrical statements that seems personal to the listener. This is the era of punk that Charred Hearts alludes to and connects with. More about melodic aggression than the wall of noise that the genre seemed to evolve into in its later years.

What I like about this album is that, although there are some straight down the line punk songs to be found here, openers Always Beside Me and Amnesia are classic examples of this, the band are clever enough not to restrict themselves by the format. Changing Into Something, for example, shows that they are not afraid to move into more groove laden territory and You're Bringing Me Down is happy to sit in more straight rock territory, but not in some sort of unfocused or compromising sort of way, these are still great songs. The influence of David Marx, the man roped in at the eleventh hour to complete the line up and oversee production, is clearly seen on the two songs he brought to the album. That said, whilst Beggar On The Underground does sound like Charred Hearts playing someone else's song, and lets face it, they are, Louisiana Calling is a song that they make totally their own. The album bows out with Crash, a song that I loved immediately not least because it sounded as if it had just fallen off of an Iggy and the Stooges album and you can't get better than that really.

It's an album that steers away from some of the clichd pitfalls that younger bands fall into, oozes melody, yet makes no compromise with its boisterousness and drive. In fact, it ticks all the boxes, punk and otherwise and makes you wonder, if they hadn't of taken that decade and a half hiatus, where they would be now in terms of a musical career path. Either way, you have an album of classy, punchy songs that are the combination of youthful exuberance and more experienced delivery, possibly an album all the better for its long time coming.
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