It became something of a rallying cry; the title of the opening song from The Levellers’ second album Levelling The Land, One Way, with it’s existentialist call out and lyrical railing against capitalism and conformity became a live favourite, but also a stick to beat the quintet with.
Certainly the indie labels licensing to majors model wasn’t ever you sensed meant to produce this, a genuine word of mouth success, a band who ostensibly were outside the machine but were selling five times the records The House of Love did. It was the sort of thing that gave Alan McGee nightmares.
Zeitgeist was released in 1995 and went toe to toe with Different Class, The Great Escape and What’s The Story.., also making number one. It’s a succinct bottling of the Brighton outfit’s parts, a heady mix of folk rock, punk and gothic romanticism that on singles Hope St., Fantasy and Just The One also shows an ear for a pop-centric hook. This 30th anniversary version is bolstered by the not unusual mix of demo, live and reworked material, with Joe Strummer making a non-singing appearance and in turn making us miss him more than ever.
It wasn’t supposed to happen – and it’s largely been airbrushed out of history – but it did, and in Zeitgeist we have the enjoyable proof.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 