The Cup Final - Drastic//Automatic
Welcoming back old friends of FLARE, Drastic//Automatic celebrate the end of the controversial World Cup with the release of their latest single The Cup Final…
The Cup Final - Drastic//Automatic. Photo: @jamburrito1/
Serving as a fitting anti-anthem, the third single from the Sheffield-based boys is a chaotic mockery of modern football culture. Highlighting the absurdity of the tournament and relentlessly taking the piss out of the corporate greed of the event, The Cup Final offers anything but the pseudo-wholesomeness of Three Lions (Football’s Coming Home).
Mocking the ignorance of maniacal chanting from stadiums built at the cost of 6,500 lives, Sissy Green and Benji Wilson set alight the track with a doomy vengeance. With the scene set for angered satire, the industrial effects of Sean Hession’s guitar decorates the track with metallic jolts poking jagged edges in the songs composition. Barking back at the primitive violence of football chants, Hession adds to the doomy rhythm with his notorious gritty vocals booming out, “The cup final, on vinyl / that sounds so cool, like Rik Mayall”.
Following the original riff, the track builds upon its opening composition for a chaotic release of fuzzy noise. The tension in the frontman’s vocals can be heard growing stronger and stronger as The Cup Final progresses, with the phrasing of his words becoming more and more static, hypnotically piercing your ear drums. Here and there you get a slightly more understated guitar melody swimming beneath the surface of the agro atmosphere, dipping between the ferocious intricacy of the rhythm section. Addictively demanding and brash, The Cup Final is a siren call for the dormant adrenaline in your bones, with each component tugging on the remnants of your teenage angst.
Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit if football’s coming home, but I can tell you one thing for sure- Drastic//Automatic sure are (wahey). Still standing strong after their third release of the year, the post-punk trio are ending 2022 with a single to remember, showing us that post-punk and satire is still so cool… like Rik Mayall.