“Attitude Adjustment is punk rock with a Motown vibe! A new album should always have elements of surprise and create its own world, and this does,” Steve Diggle.
Steve Diggle’s decision to keep Buzzcocks going, taken after the all-star Pete Shelley tribute show at the Royal Albert Hall in 2019, is a pressure. Of course the band can’t be the same, but it means any new record bearing the brand is judged against that back catalogue.
“Big hollow dreams about what it means, hello!
When you’re looking for love on a live live live freakshow”
Like ‘Senses Out of Control‘, the first song on ‘Sonics in the Soul‘ (2023), ‘Queen of the Scene‘ courses with Buzzcocks reference points. There’s the story – about reality TV – some spiky lead on top of the chug, a big chorus, and the first “whoa” in a long time. A cushioned drop into ‘Attitude Adjustment‘, sophomore long player from the three-piece. (Tour guitarist Mani Perazzoli plays no part in the studio.)
Alongside Diggle, ‘Attitude Adjustment‘ features bassist Chris Remington and drummer Danny Farrant who both played on ‘Sonics‘, so it’s subject to some second album syndrome scrutiny too. And with no creative input from anywhere else, beyond Malcolm Garrett’s artwork, Diggle’s writing has to steer a path between fans’ expectations and his want to keep on keeping on. No easy street. But here’s another really worthwhile record, despite the odds.
Recorded in London, ‘Attitude Adjustment‘ is Diggle in more predictable voice than he was on ‘Sonics In The Soul‘, a product of not trying so hard to fill the Shelley-shaped hole with variations on the vocal. It’s big; punchy guitar and cryptic relationship/life tales.
‘Seeing Daylight‘ sets off like ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi‘ before settling into a ‘She Bangs the Drums‘-style rhythm. ‘My Poetic Machine Gun‘ fires at a similar pace and, like ‘Tear of a Golden Girl‘, which amplifies great work from the rhythm section under Diggle’s sharp, scratchy lead line, should be a shoe-in for the setlist.
The second song, ‘Games‘, is one of the exceptions. It’s a languid 60s pastiche, Diggle dragging the ‘I’ in “I’ve got nothing to say to you” like Lennon does on ‘I Should Have Known Better‘. Except this is bitter breakup; “You thought there was a future, but it’s all in the past”.
Another, ‘Heavy Streets‘, reads/listens like a sequel to ‘Sick City Sometimes‘, thick with threat and intimidation: “Hear the sound of the sirens loud, Down those heavy streets…”
In the middle of the record, flanked by ‘One of the Universe, Parts One and Two‘ – 55 second wig outs “hands in pockets and life in reverse” – ‘All Gone To War‘ is a folky rumination on the rifle, the bomb, the drone, and the damage done. A sombre reflection of the passionate Lennon-esque “I don’t want to be a soldier, I don’t want to kill no one” element Diggle has been bringing to the middle of ‘Harmony In my Head‘ on stage, “I don’t want to see some fucker die, die, die…”
‘Jesus at the Wheel‘, which opens like Nick Cave’s ‘Nature Boy‘, is easy listening. It’s an observation, picking up on the wants of a street preacher, “All those things they make you say, End of the world is coming today, Is there another life anyway”.
Motown is a broad church but it’s not until ‘Break That Ball and Chain’s funky bass riff, horns and backing vocals that the ‘vibe’ pulls up a proper pew here, alongside Paul Weller in the 1990s. Diggle is the recognisable anchor of course but it’s new ground for Buzzcocks otherwise.
“A girl [I know] going off her head, Sleeping in a doorway without a bed”, ‘Attitude Adjustment‘ wraps with ‘The Greatest Of Them All‘, another example of the songwriter’s observations, his compassion. That opening line chimes with Bowie’s ‘Five Years‘, but it’s a product of Diggle’s Dylan infatuation too.
‘Attitude Adjustment‘ isn’t going to trouble the pantheon of prime Buzzcocks it will be judged against – such is the nature of my digital stack ‘E.S.P.‘ kicks in straight after the finish – but Steve Diggle gives the band his everything. In a small club their gigs are fantastic, and there are songs here that will fit with the 50th anniversary tour; ‘Friends of Mine‘ to ‘Feeling Uptight‘, maybe?
Plenty of young people go to see Buzzcocks but it’s the older fans who are likely to sit down with this LP, listen, then listen again. And again. That’s how you get the best of ‘Attitude Adjustment‘, a record that, for Steve Diggle, “avoids the cliché and expands the Buzzcocks’ magical journey”.
Coming out on 30th January 2026, via Cherry Red Records, pre-order your copy of ‘Attitude Adjustment‘ on CD and vinyl LP HERE / pre-save the digital album HERE
Main Photo Credit: JANETTE BECKMAN
1. Queen of the Scene
2. Games
3. Seeing Daylight
4. Poetic Machine Gun
5. Tear of a Golden Girl
6. Heavy Streets
7. One of the Universe (Part One)
8. All Gone to War
9. One of the Universe (Part Two)
10. Jesus at the Wheel
11. Just a Dream I Followed
12. Feeling Uptight
13. Break That Ball and Chain
14. The Greatest of Them All
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