Cock Sparrer – Run Away – Review

Cock Sparrer

Run Away (Bitzcore)
by Joshua Brown

An essentially unessential release from a great band. The first thing that pissed me off about this CD was an ignorable metallized version of “Sunday Stripper,” one of my favorite Oi! tunes ever. Next was the length; specifically, the lack of it. There are four OK live tracks and three in the studio. Cock Sparrer were pioneers of Oi! music, with a history spanning from the punk explosion of the late ’70s until the present. An exhaustive retrospective would be more in order than an EP designed for Cock Sparrer completists only. The upside, however, was the second studio track – a perfect example of what has made Oi! great: Nuts and bolts folk protest songs (with at times questionable to objectionable politics [Cock Sparrer were always fairly PC], but that’s a whole other discussion) blended with pogo rock adrenaline. (“You tear the world apart/No brains, no guts, no hearts/Why can’t you see?”)