Eighth studio album for Londoners Cock Sparrer, the last in the intentions of the band who, in reality, would have liked to say goodbye already with the previous “Forever”, released in April 2017; theextra time resulting from the forced pandemic lockdown has instead allowed us to produce the ten new songs that make up this “Hand On Heart”.
Opens the album there quasi-title track “With My Hand On My Heart”, which takes up the sound coordinates of the aforementioned “Forever”, or rather an Oi! punk with melodic nuances, fast, anthemic and in the name of singalong. And this is the stylistic feature that distinguishes almost all of “Hand On Heart”, after all it is not the experimentation that is expected from Sparrers. In any case, a bigger budget than usual (this time they didn't spend it all at the pub, according to the press release!) and the collaboration on the mastering of the award-winning Tuff studios allow some “derivations” from the traditional Cock Sparrer-sound (the arches of the church stand out in particular ballad “My Forgotten Dream”).
Even the lyrics remain faithful to the line: stories of ordinary resistance, of young (and not so young) “rebels”, between friendship, nostalgia and a gaze that always remains turned towards the future.
Last but not least: the final “Here We Stand” is in all probability thehighlight of the album, a powerful programmatic statement that adds to the rich list of “hits” churned out by the English in over fifty years of activity.
Last studio work (perhaps), but not the end of Cock Sparrer's story: a group of friends who have been playing together for half a century and for half a century have shared the joys and sorrows of a (real) life as a working class.
12/17/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
