Chart entered : 21 September 1991
Chart peak : 51 ( 33 in a re-recorded version in 1999 )
Number of hits : 19
This lot pretty much define the nineties fanbase act with a consistent string of hits throughout the decade without breaching the Top 10.
The Levellers were founded in Brighton in 1988 by singer and guitarist Mark Chadwick , bassist Jeremy Cunningham and drummer Charlie Heather. Mark's girlfriend had a brother Jonathan Sevnik who could play the fiddle and he was drafted in as was Mark's flatmate David Buckmeister but he lost interest and quit after a few months. Like New Model Army , probably their nearest equivalent amongst those we've discussed previously, they found inspiration in the English Civil War , naming themselves after a radical group that Cromwell eventually suppressed. The band's folk rock, owing something to Dexy's and the Waterboys, and "crusty" image quickly attracted a following amongst the travelling community and a loyal audience who would hitch hike to their gigs. The band started reproducing copies of their demo tapes and selling them at their concerts.
The following year they added multi-instrumentalist Alan Miles to the line up and an EP "Carry Me" became their first conventional release on their own Hag! label. The titular track is an acoustic strum with heavy fiddle and harmonica parts somewhere between The Alarm and The Strawbs with Mark's reedy vocal , about the difficulties of holding a radical grouping together, to the fore. "What's In The Way" evokes the latter more strongly with the "Lay me down" refrain. The fourth track "England My Home" boasts a more muscular sound.
They released another EP, "Inside/ Outside" before the end of the year. The title track is an explicit call to drop out of the rat race set to a pummelling beat . The other three are less commercial folk protests, "Hard Fight" is episodic and rambling. "I Have No Answers" firmly nails their colours to the anarchist mast while "Barrel of a Gun" is a bleak acoustic protest at the SAS executions in Gibraltar.
Six of the tracks on these first two EPs subsequently re-appeared in spruced up form on their debut LP "A Weapon Called The World", released on the French label, Musidisc. in April 1990. The other tracks are much in the same vein, agitated folk rock topped off with Mark's braying vocals which are wearing at album's length. It's apparently gone gold without ever making the charts. Another single was pulled from it, "World Freakshow" in June. As the title suggests, it's a condemnation of everything seen on TV from ecological horrors to seismic world events which culminates in an overwrought near-rap section. In France, the label also issued "Together All The Way" as a single. The song is close to The Waterboys in both music and sentiment with lyrics about the passage of time and recalling the spirit of your younger days.
Shortly after the album's release , Miles quit the band as their relentless touring schedule became too much for him and was replaced by Simon Friend, a singer-songwriter who had supported them recently. Not long after that, the band quit Musidisc and signed for China Records.
"One Way" was their first release for the new label. It's become one of their signature songs, a defence of dropping out and not conforming though one man's rejection of hi hometown's values ( although its siren call is acknowledged ). It's a good lyric but it does seem to be split across two separate songs with the verses delivered loosely over a Madchester rhythm before a sudden shift to taut rock dynamics for the anthemic chorus. It's got enough of a hook to account for its chart performance but it doesn't sound entirely comfortable to me and the vocals remain difficult to love.
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