Measuring the time of things means trying, every so often, to do them
justice. More than four decades after their birth, this piece retraces
the story of Conflict through two recent, opposing yet dramatically
close events - an expression of a temporal flow in which every beginning
is always met by an end, followed in turn by a new rebirth. ----
Conflict emerged in South London in 1981, during Margaret Thatcher's
first government, when the famous Sex Pistols had already risen and
fallen, while the anarchist collective Crass continued its musical and
militant activity in full do-it-yourself spirit, rejecting the
commodification of art and waging an anti-authoritarian struggle
grounded in alternative practices of production and dissemination of
radical ideas. Thus was born anarcho-punk: that particular expression of
punk culture which, through an anarchist lens, embraces and amplifies
ideals such as social justice, animal rights and environmentalism,
pacifism and anti-militarism, anti-racism and feminism. Alongside bands
like Chumbawamba, Flux of Pink Indians and Poison Girls, Conflict
positioned themselves at the intersection where anarchist principles and
punk culture converged - turning music composition, production and
distribution into a direct action against authority itself.
Within this context, Conflict released a striking EP on Crass Records,
The House That Man Built (1982), followed the next year by their first
album It's Time to See Who's Who (1983) and the creation of their own
label, Mortarhate Records. From the very start, the London band
unleashed a fierce assault on multiple manifestations of power, roaring
with rage against war, machismo and animal exploitation. The second half
of the 1980s became their most prolific period: between 1984 and 1993
they released six albums and deepened their activism; they supported the
British anarchist group Class War and organized a major benefit concert
on April 18, 1987 at London's Brixton Academy, titled The Gathering of
the 5000. This high-tension night, meant to raise funds for groups like
Animal Liberation Front, Antiapartheid Movement, London Greenpeace,
Imprisoned Miners Support, Hunt Saboteurs Association and Antifascist
Action, was interrupted by intimidation from venue security and followed
by a police ambush as attendees exited, resulting in violent clashes and
fifty-two arrests. After closing this intense era with Conclusion
(1993), the band went silent for a decade until There's No Power Without
Control (2003) - an album inevitably shaped by its time (the Twin Towers
attack, the second Gulf War, the rise and failure of the
anti-globalization movement) and reaffirming an unbridled radicalism
that spilled into uncontrollable anger against social injustice,
sometimes skirting nihilism and drawing occasional misunderstandings and
controversies.
This brings us to the first reason for writing these lines. Twenty-two
years after their previous album, in May 2025 came This Much Remains:
sixteen tracks and forty-five minutes of solid anarcho-punk, where the
electric ferocity of Gav's guitar and the voices of Colin and Fiona
merge with the dark shadows of an uncertain, synthetic future. Facing
it, the tone becomes calmer and Colin's warm voice revisits a time that,
though passing, refuses to stop demanding justice, because "it's still
the same old system / the same old song" (The Collusion Exclusion).
Notable among the tracks, besides the title song, are Cut the Crap
(written by poet Benjamin Zephaniah), A Mother's Milk (where veganism
and feminism intersect to critique the industrial production and
consumption of animal milk) and Statement of Intent (reasserting: "this
is not about revolution / it's only about what's right and wrong"). It's
an album worth listening to in full - if only to once again feel the
rebellious energy of Conflict, enhanced by high-quality production. A
work of rebirth and resistance, blossoming as a hope of light, justice
and unity in a world threatened by war, ecological disaster and
permanent injustice.
The second reason is the inevitable ending that follows every beginning
- bitter when time between them contracts unexpectedly. On June 2, after
a short illness, Colin Jerwood died at sixty-three: singer, founder and
soul of Conflict, the only member to remain continuously involved
through the band's forty-four years of musical struggle. The
international tour meant to promote the newly released record has been
reduced to a series of tribute concerts, and it's hard now to predict
the band's future. Yet if it's true that nothing is destroyed and
everything transforms, time itself will reveal where the suddenly denied
energy will re-emerge - to shake our lives, pull them from stagnation,
and renew them into new life. For now, this is what remains: united by
an unrelenting thirst for justice, a heartfelt tribute to the late Colin
Jerwood.
Salvatore Laneri
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
justice. More than four decades after their birth, this piece retraces
the story of Conflict through two recent, opposing yet dramatically
close events - an expression of a temporal flow in which every beginning
is always met by an end, followed in turn by a new rebirth. ----
Conflict emerged in South London in 1981, during Margaret Thatcher's
first government, when the famous Sex Pistols had already risen and
fallen, while the anarchist collective Crass continued its musical and
militant activity in full do-it-yourself spirit, rejecting the
commodification of art and waging an anti-authoritarian struggle
grounded in alternative practices of production and dissemination of
radical ideas. Thus was born anarcho-punk: that particular expression of
punk culture which, through an anarchist lens, embraces and amplifies
ideals such as social justice, animal rights and environmentalism,
pacifism and anti-militarism, anti-racism and feminism. Alongside bands
like Chumbawamba, Flux of Pink Indians and Poison Girls, Conflict
positioned themselves at the intersection where anarchist principles and
punk culture converged - turning music composition, production and
distribution into a direct action against authority itself.
Within this context, Conflict released a striking EP on Crass Records,
The House That Man Built (1982), followed the next year by their first
album It's Time to See Who's Who (1983) and the creation of their own
label, Mortarhate Records. From the very start, the London band
unleashed a fierce assault on multiple manifestations of power, roaring
with rage against war, machismo and animal exploitation. The second half
of the 1980s became their most prolific period: between 1984 and 1993
they released six albums and deepened their activism; they supported the
British anarchist group Class War and organized a major benefit concert
on April 18, 1987 at London's Brixton Academy, titled The Gathering of
the 5000. This high-tension night, meant to raise funds for groups like
Animal Liberation Front, Antiapartheid Movement, London Greenpeace,
Imprisoned Miners Support, Hunt Saboteurs Association and Antifascist
Action, was interrupted by intimidation from venue security and followed
by a police ambush as attendees exited, resulting in violent clashes and
fifty-two arrests. After closing this intense era with Conclusion
(1993), the band went silent for a decade until There's No Power Without
Control (2003) - an album inevitably shaped by its time (the Twin Towers
attack, the second Gulf War, the rise and failure of the
anti-globalization movement) and reaffirming an unbridled radicalism
that spilled into uncontrollable anger against social injustice,
sometimes skirting nihilism and drawing occasional misunderstandings and
controversies.
This brings us to the first reason for writing these lines. Twenty-two
years after their previous album, in May 2025 came This Much Remains:
sixteen tracks and forty-five minutes of solid anarcho-punk, where the
electric ferocity of Gav's guitar and the voices of Colin and Fiona
merge with the dark shadows of an uncertain, synthetic future. Facing
it, the tone becomes calmer and Colin's warm voice revisits a time that,
though passing, refuses to stop demanding justice, because "it's still
the same old system / the same old song" (The Collusion Exclusion).
Notable among the tracks, besides the title song, are Cut the Crap
(written by poet Benjamin Zephaniah), A Mother's Milk (where veganism
and feminism intersect to critique the industrial production and
consumption of animal milk) and Statement of Intent (reasserting: "this
is not about revolution / it's only about what's right and wrong"). It's
an album worth listening to in full - if only to once again feel the
rebellious energy of Conflict, enhanced by high-quality production. A
work of rebirth and resistance, blossoming as a hope of light, justice
and unity in a world threatened by war, ecological disaster and
permanent injustice.
The second reason is the inevitable ending that follows every beginning
- bitter when time between them contracts unexpectedly. On June 2, after
a short illness, Colin Jerwood died at sixty-three: singer, founder and
soul of Conflict, the only member to remain continuously involved
through the band's forty-four years of musical struggle. The
international tour meant to promote the newly released record has been
reduced to a series of tribute concerts, and it's hard now to predict
the band's future. Yet if it's true that nothing is destroyed and
everything transforms, time itself will reveal where the suddenly denied
energy will re-emerge - to shake our lives, pull them from stagnation,
and renew them into new life. For now, this is what remains: united by
an unrelenting thirst for justice, a heartfelt tribute to the late Colin
Jerwood.
Salvatore Laneri
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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