http://www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Rumbles_June07.htm

The moody grey-toned artworks and stencilled lettering that threads its way through the array of CDRs in Cream of the Crop's catalogue strangely echo Crass's righteously dissenting voice during the Thatcherist years of the Falklands War, Yuppies, the Poll tax, the Miner's Strike etbloodycetera. Perhaps Colin Scott, the label chief of Cream of the Crop, is trying to draw a parallel between the grocer's daughter and the spin-obsessed Blairites of today (Iraq war, Afghanistan, cash for honours, genetically modified crops (, suggesting that the trickster persona has merely adopted a new mask? Hmmm.. I started this in a fairly good frame of mind, so before the Desponds start knocking on my door I think we'd better proceed with Cream of the Crops's, erm, cream of the crop.

And that simply has to start with Heilige Lance, named after the (holy) spear of Longinius that pierced the side of J. Christ (grab Trevor Ravenscroft's 'Spear of Destiny' paperback for further info). Hailing from the "nihilistic wastelands" of Stoke, up to now the band have only played to invited audiences – so if you haven't snapped up their previous releases on Hollow Valley Records, their untitled CDR EP on Cream of the Crop might just be your first glimpse of something rather special. A bizarre packaging concept with a vinyl record shard, a square of fencing and a ragged manifesto, contains four tracks that bolt a juggernaut forward surge onto a sound last heard on early Joy Division and PIL sides, not to mention Section 25, Sport of Kings (on Thermidor Records) and Denmark's Sort Sol. With buzz-lines such as "I am a retrograde charlatan" and "Maybe if you had been aborted, I wouldn't be so mercurial", the vocalist's hectoring snarl dovetails in a ruthlessly efficient manner with a thoroughly desperate and monstrously imposing guitar clangour (there are no credits - fact fans!) Added to which is the expert placement of tape excerpts (JFK, WW2 newsreels, ear-slicing screams etc) which recall the work of Sheffield's finest, Cabaret Voltaire. This is a perfectly realised set from a collective that are in total control, and has to be heard to be believed.