Newtown Neurotics still want to kick the Tories out on Cognitive Dissidents

Harlow political punk perennials the Newtown Neurotics battle on against the odds with new album Cognitive Dissidents

By Johnny Sharp
( Classic Rock )
published
Newtown Neurotics: Cognitive Dissidents cover art
(Image: © Cadiz)

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Steve Drewett’s voice may betray his advanced years on these Essex punk veterans’ latest set, but a potent songwriting flame still flickers on some of these agit-pop broadsides. 

“Broad” is in fact the operative word – any temptation to couch meanings in poetic metaphor is consistently swerved on Ronseal-style titles such as Climate Emergency and Hell In A Handcart.

'The architect built a socialist dream, and then the Tories underfunded it, undermined its central dream,’ sings Drewett on Take Your Dirty Hands Off My Town sounding more like a point of order at a council meeting than a song lyric. 

All the same, ebullient hooks, buzzing guitar riffs and the sheer conviction of Drewett’s delivery keep us engaged.

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.