Attila the Stockbroker

Attila the Stockbroker Sawdust and Empire LP

Astonishingly original. ATTILA’s latest album adapts Renaissance instrumentation to clever, satiric views of contemporary British life. At times, the amalgam seems tiresome, but some novel tracks—the slow, moving title song, the somewhat thrashier “Dies Irae,” with its exciting mandolin work, and he hilarious “Boadicea Über Alles”—make the record interesting enough to appeal to those with broader taste.

• Reviewer Steve Spinali
• Label Anagram
• Issue MRR #15 • July 1984

Attila the Stockbroker Ranting at the Nation LP

This is an extraordinary album, a marvelous example of the politically oriented ranting poetry coming out of England today. ATTILA is sort of a cross between Lenny Bruce and John Cooper-Clarke, in that his incisive political views are wedded to biting satire and sung/spoken in a dense (though comprehensible) English accent. There is a bit of funnypunk music here, manifested in exemplary songs like “Away Day,” “Hands Off the Halibuts,” and “Russians in McDonalds.”

• Reviewer Jeff Bale
• Label Cherry Red
• Issue MRR #6 • May/June 1983