Education, Education, Education & War [LP]

The fifth long-player from the Leeds-based festival rockers with a penchant for climbing lighting rigs and crafting arm-waving anthems that fuse the anthemic scope of classic Brit-pop with the insular, progressive cynicism of early-2000s indie rock, begins with the rousing "Factory Gates," a distillation of all of those aforementioned attributes that sounds a bit like what is arguably their most well-known song, 2005's "I Predict a Riot." As arena anthems go, you could do a lot worse than the infectious, aforementioned earworm of an opener and the like-minded "Ruffians on Parade," or the propulsive and pugilistic "Misery Company," a wily and willfully melodic ode to self-deprecation that's built around a chorus of maniacal laughter. There's a refreshing, devil-may-care cavalier attitude to Education, Education, Education & War that eradicates much of the desperation that was beginning to creep in after 2007's Yours Truly, Angry Mob. ~ James Christopher Monger