Greatest Hits, by Two Marks and a Frank (muzoic.com)

5/5

ON THE day Kellingley colliery closure is announced, Two Marks and a Frank’s single Lament sounds like one of the greatest epitaphs to Thatcher ever written.

With a chorus reminding us of her evil — “the list goes on and on” — they sing beautifully, nailing the bitterness that aches in the valleys of Wales for a woman who can “kiss my fucking arse.”

The three are actually four, plus a great drum machine who doubles as their manager.

Mischievous and satirical yet hugely talented, their ironically titled Greatest Hits is a carefully constructed homage to the blighted lives and devastated communities of south Wales.

They tell heartfelt, intelligent truths, mined from the experience they have lived through but with a marching beat, pop sensibility and some great tunes.

Singer and ex-miner Mark’s voice has a strained, rough beauty as he sings: “You know I am always right” on opener Facebook, a wry take on modern dinner-party culture obsessed with social media.

You empathise with Roy who is “a mammie’s boy, he got a head full of toys, you give him a problem and he can solve them” and then is let down by a system that used to produce things but doesn’t anymore and has failed him, treating him like a fool in the process.

He careers along, driven by some excellent guitar work that climaxes as industry dies.

Muller with its “shake shake” has a frantic pace which made me at first suspect it’s about drugs but it could equally be about religion poisoning the minds of young people.

Looker has an obvious refrain, as the way many men stereotype and fetishise women is mercilessly ridiculed. Bitter, with its intro of Churchill’s “Fight them on the beaches … never surrender” speech has an impassioned vocal over rousing punk and blues that predicts the ultimate demise of capitalism that is to come.

Glorious but laced with a pure distaste for a system that promises to set us free, it ends as abruptly as the Ftse in free fall.

Stand-out track Heaven has a measured, opening beat that’s the the perfect foil to its “There is no heaven in my order, a flower dying in the ground” chorus.

There’s a magnificent, slow-burn cacophony of fuzz-drenched guitar sounds that immerse you in the realisation there has to be more to life than a 52 inch TV. “There is no peace to be found,” makes absolutely perfect sense.

At times funny, at times menacing, the band release all their tension via this journey through eight musical gems dug out of the black and foreboding Welsh countryside.

With a sensitivity that speaks volumes about their class consciousness, their sound is as eye-watering as a knife though an onion.

And as Shrek once said, they are as many layered as an onion too. Go and see them live, as well as buy this album.

You won’t be disappointed.