Violent Femmes - We Can Do Anything, album review: ‘back to their best’

The punk-folk veterans are back with a set of rousing, self-aware and sometimes puerile songs

Acoustic punk: Violent Femmes are back and slightly slicker than they were in the Eighties

Andre Paine4 March 2016

Hearing a favourite song on a TV advert can be a dispiriting experience.

Violent Femmes - We Can Do Anything

Punk-folk veterans Violent Femmes actually split up because their signature tune was licensed for a burger chain commercial.

Nine years after the US band’s internal row over selling out, they’ve fully made up with their first album since 2000. The concise comeback features old ideas discovered in journals alongside brand new tunes, including surprising collaborations with songwriters for One Direction and Katy Perry.

It’s slicker than their Eighties records but they still sound like Violent Femmes: urgent, jittery acoustic punk with Gordon Gano’s wayward vocal and witty lyrics. They draw on polka on the stomping I Could Be Anything and country for I’m Not Done.

On these rousing, self-aware and sometimes puerile songs, they’re a band back to their best.