SPIRITUAL CRAMP

Spiritual Cramp is what happens when you treat the English Beat’s “Mirror In The Bathroom” as a guide for living. Spiritual Cramp is what happens when you argue that Mick Jones was the best Clasher, at first just to annoy the older punks, but eventually you realize you meant it all along. Spiritual Cramp is what happens when a band has never read Nietzsche and stares too long at the rude boys. Spiritual Cramp is what happens when Tony Manero and Richard Ashcroft strut into each other on the sidewalk, coming from opposite directions, and both refuse to give way. Eventually they kiss, roughly at first but with increasing tenderness. At the three minute mark, they stop and part as exes, with memories that’ll last a lifetime.

Spiritual Cramp may chafe at the fanciness of the above description. Spiritual Cramp describe themselves as a punk band. If pressed, they’ll describe their sound as “Fast down strokes. Upstrokes. Reggae inspired. Hip hop production. Big loud stage show. Ferocity, but reigned in, and played on small amps.” Which is accurate, as far as that goes, especially when they cite both Tom Tom Club and The Strokes as influences. It at least indicates that Spiritual Cramp—as much as they’re punk or hard mod—is at heart a dance band. Like The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, Kaiser Chiefs (first two albums only), Turnstile, and the Murder City Devils are all dance bands. Or maybe a dance band like if LL Cool J had kept his live band and taken Mama Said Take You Out on the road as an Oi! band. Point is: whatever Spiritual Cramp may claim to reign in, this remains body music.

In the same vein, Spiritual Cramp’s self assessment also fails to mention that, years before the current nü Oi! Revival, Spiritual Cramp was bringing back gang vocals as pop, and popping moped wheelies in DIY parking lots from coast to coast. And anyone who has seen the SF band, since their inception in 2016, knows that they are a fancy band; stylish, impressively reeking of charisma, and fully aware that “show business” without the “show” is a grim business indeed. And they know as well as any punx that life is grim enough. Even if one subscribes to a Cock Sparrian belief in the inevitability of the wall, that doesn’t mean either the shooter or shootee needs to look uncool for the duration of that last cigarette. So Spiritual Cramp are fancy in the same way that The Untouchables (the band, but also the movie) and Talulah Gosh were fancy. Ruggedly fancy in the way Blur were fancy when Oasis forced them to go to the gym and affect a fondness for football. In the way that skinheads are fancy when they attend a funeral, a wedding, or a Paul Weller concert. At least that’s what the music sounds like; like the band just wiped the shit off their shitkickers, just wiped the blood off their Oxbloods, hopped on their lil’ baby motorcycles, and made it to the chapel just in time to marry their super hot sweetheart, who’s only gotten hotter since she/he/they got that Crisis tattoo covered up.