Mortarhate Records – MORT 20
I remember seeing The Final Conflict in Virgin Megastores when it came out. The name I'd seen around Camden a lot while out that way - printed on the back of jackets and in record shops. The black cover knocked me back as I thought it was so powerful. I then became really intrigued by them when I saw on the back that they had a cover of the A Team theme.
Of course, it wasn't the A Team theme - just a song by the same name. I found this out as a guy I worked with at CEX (Or Tottenham Court Road Computer Exchange as the business was known back then) picked up the album and played it in store. I was gutted that there wasn't a punk cover of one of the best theme tunes ever but liked the music.
Anyhow...Conflict had always rattled around in my head as a group that at some point I needed to delve further into.
A couple of years later, I was in a band and there was a plan to cover Big Hands by Conflict, which stupidly I tried to learn from a live recorded LP borrowed from a guy who somehow managed to live in our house for a year, yet never officially therefore avoiding rent. You couldn't pick out the drums very well, so I just kind of made it up. The cover was weak at best and we ditched it before the band ultimately was ditched itself.
The same guy had this album on CD. The cover is so powerful that it took me straight back to the first time I saw that black album cover of their following LP.
At that point, the Police were just useless bobbies on the beat or city cops who would seem to spend all day moving you on from skate spot to skate spot. But this guy had the British Police font on a fearsome bit of headgear and a gun. In England.
That's pretty weird for a kid from the UK to see.
I'd listen to the album a bit in the kitchen of that place. This was around '97, for about a year. About twelve years later, I realised I'd not listened to this in a long time and after a quick search in a local shop, picked it up for not much more than the original 1986 cover price of £4.
I love this album. From the post-apocalyptic start to its gentle yet harrowing finish. It's just one of those records which has been clearly thought out as an entire album rather than having its order thrown together last minute.
I regret not picking it up back when I was first figuring out punk rock...because I know I spent my money on a lot of crap instead.
Don't skip: The Ungovernable Farce, A Piss In The Ocean, Force or Service, Statement
