The last time I bumped into The Chisel was when they played with the Circle Jerks in London about eighteen months ago. They tore the roof off the Electric Ballroom, which given who was going to follow them out onto the stage and the ambivalence of the post-40-something only there to see the headliner demographic of the majority of the crowd proved to me that they were, and are, something special.

What A FuckIng Nightmare picks up exactly where The Chisel left off on that balmy, drunken August night in the capital. It’s a full-throttle, fury-driven, no-holds-barred punk rock battleplan for global scene domination authored by the bastard offspring of the Stiff Little Fingers and T.S.O.L. circa 1982, if said progeny had been raised on a steady musical diet of The Middle Class, UK Subs and The Business, and had cut its showgoing teeth in the clubs that Nardcore called home.

It’s a pit-hardened assault that doesn’t take its foot off the loud pedal until the last chords of the album closer, What I See fade into a distant, background hum. I don’t care how you get it, but you need to hear this record, as The Chisel, along with The Bar Stool Preachers, Grade 2, Clobber, Eye Teeth, The Diaz Brothers, The Stayawakes and Split Dogs are at the forefront of the incredible wave of new UK bands that are redefining and reshaping the scene, and making it a force to be reckoned with again. This isn’t a record you want. It’s a record you need. Tim Cundle