A London group formed in the late 2000s but indebted to '70s British punk and bands that would later be labeled post-punk,
Hygiene followed a series of short-form D.I.Y. releases with an official debut,
Public Sector, in 2011. Motivated to emerge from an ensuing hiatus by the fallout of events including the Brexit election of 2016, they return in 2019 with the protest-fueled
Private Sector. While the ripple effects of President Trump are certainly a factor in their grievances, it's a distinctly U.K.-centric set concerned with the English working class. Songs with titles like "Bring Back British Rail," "Dolphin Square," and "Big Six" -- a nickname for the U.K.'s six largest energy companies -- are delivered via a direct, scrappy punk rock. With main vocalist Nathaniel Weiner evoking a ticked-off
Fred Schneider on much of the album, they take on the comfortable classes, with "your costume dramas, your royal family," on "English Disease." The chorus' melodic bass line, time-keeping snare, and punchy, three-chord guitar riffs accompany the group-chanted words "English disease." Meanwhile, interjections including "No cure for!" and "Save me from!" move between left and right in the mix. "Sick Man of Europe" alternates urgent punk with slower sections of rhythmic, half-spoken commentary ("The colonels: Mussolini, Salazar, and Franco/It was not really all that long ago"). Elsewhere, the caustically melodic "He Doesn't Want to Pay His Taxes" features Lucy Anstey of punk band
Primetime on co-lead vocals. Its dilapidated duo-guitar break ends with the screech of feedback before the singers re-enter with "They don't want to pay their taxes/They just want to make money." Angry and infectious for nearly all of its 35 minutes,
Private Sector manages catharsis without the staginess that pervades some of '70s rock and early punk's more hardcore descendants. Arriving in an era of click tracks and home-studio software, it's also refreshingly -- or infuriatingly -- loose, even for garage punks.