This is The Professionals third album and compared to the gap between the first and second albums, this one has come out a mere four years after What In The World. This time the guitars are handled by Billy Duffy and Phil Collen, neither of whom made it into the touring band, being replaced by Rich Jones alongside of course Paul Cook on drums, Toshi JC Ogwana on Bass and Tom Spencer on vocals and guitar.
The album comes rushing out of your speakers with Easily Lead a song that's quickly becoming another live classic as this tale of doing what others want you to do when you have a gun to your head, set to good crunchy guitars and Paul Cooks precision drilled drumming.
Gold And Truthful has a naggingly insistent bass and guitar line for Tom Spencer's vocals to lay out how things are, now we've moved on from the good old days, when you'd expect people to be more or less truthful especially those in power.
Spike Me Baby is one of the singles from the album and is the brilliant tale of how Paul's daughter Hollie had made some hash brownies that Paul helped himself too, without knowing they were spiked and what a ride he then went on, he's turned the experience into something like a Demolition 23 chant along anthem, to being accidentally stoned out of your mind, his daughter is on backing vocals and probably still sniggering at the effect they had on her dad.
Punk Rock And A Hard Place is a full on adrenal rush of a self-empowerment anthem telling you not to give up and go out and follow your dreams no matter what the obstacles are.
M'Ashes is the sad and heartening tale of the mercy mission Paul went on, when he flew to Los Angeles with Mary Jones ashes, to deliver them to her son Steve, who she hadn't spoken to in a good few years, they almost slow things down to a punk ballad but this is still spiky enough, a good tribute, now Steve can do what he wants with his mums ashes, as the guitars pay final tribute to her.
Heartburn is a good bouncy slice of Glam punk about how things always seem to go round and round in an endless cycle almost like Hey! Hello! it's time for a Loyalties or Yoyo's reunion tour next.
Never Say Never feels like it should be a big sing along set to a good crunchy riff, nagging bass and drums that just won't let up.
So No Go is all about the schemes and plans you make to work with people who were once friends and colleagues but who no longer want to be part of your plans while still mining the good old bad old days for what they can get from them, who could they be talking about.
The Elegant Art (Of Falling Apart) and those that have really done it know how elegant and messy it can be and this is as straight ahead rocking a tribute to falling apart at the seams as you could want, with some rather nifty guitar-work just about keeping everything together.
Only Human celebrates the frailty we all have after making more mistakes and screwing things up once more as Tom screams and shouts his pain out as he realizes just how cruel we all can be. This ends with a great rant over the fade out that might be worth hearing in full on an extended re-mix if such a thing were possible.
The album closes with Consuminator an anthem for the end of the Consuminator society and the needs of real change many of us feel, along with all sorts of other questions for how to move into a post Consuminator world, maybe we need a return to the world of the Consummator that Mickey Spillane conjured up? This certainly has some of those noir elements to help find some sort of happy ending.
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