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7 / 10 Buzz doesn’t last long these days. Had Bowie started out a few years ago he’d have been written off by now. The Chapman Family were chosen, quite rightly too, for NME’s Radar Tour, their incendiary and chaotic live performances reducing all before them to quivering goo, but that was 2009.

Acts with a career plan would look to capitalise on the exposure, knock together a record and ride the zeitgeist. Being the malcontents that they are, the Chapmans spent the best part of two years honing their debut while the fuss died down. ‘Burn Your Town’ arrives at a time of cuts and high youth unemployment; it’s a record that mirrors the frustrations and discontentment of the disenfranchised.

“And they say your best isn’t good enough”, cries out Kingsley Chapman on ‘Anxiety’, capturing the anguish of what it means to be young and unwanted. ‘All Fall’, too, sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy that everything will end in tears.

They’re not so much fiddling while Rome burns as clattering bass and drums magnificently while they take a torch to Redcar.

Jeremy Allen

7/10

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Video: The Chapman Family - 'Anxiety' (Exclusive Explicit Version)

Date/Time	Venue	Town/City	Seetickets	Viagogo
May 31, 2013	The Scholar	Leicester	Buy The Chapman Family Tickets from £6
May 31, 2013	The Scholar Bar	Leicester	Buy The Chapman Family Tickets from £6
Jun 03, 2013	Upstairs @ The Garage	London	Buy The Chapman Family Tickets from £6
Jun 05, 2013	The Slade Rooms, Broad Street	Wolverhampton	Buy The Chapman Family Tickets from £6