Album Review: Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School Of Medicine - White People And The Damage Done

It doesn't feel like it, but since the demise of the Dead Kennedys, US punk icon Jello Biafra has made a lot of music. Mostly by stealing other peoples' bands, like DOA, Mojo Nixon, Melvins and of course, Ministry with Lard. And throughout it all he's maintained an ongoing, at times amusing, at times paranoid, at others disquieting diatribe against corporate and state control.

But this is his own band, something of a super group with members of Victims Family, Helios Creed, Mol Triffid and Rollins Band, and they play the kind of hard driving punk that made his name. This is their third album, and his first concept LP since the Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist – and we all know how that went for him. It's about the corporate corruption that triggered the Global Financial Crisis, and the response of governments not to jail, but to shovel more money at the banksters.

The centre point of this album is Werewolves Of Wall Street, a somewhat anthemic dirge, detailing how wealth addiction led to the crash; “too big to fail sure don't mean too rich to jail”, he screams. Similarly Shock-U-Py! is about people power, part history lesson, part call to arms that is the perfect marriage between outrage and aggression. Mid East Peace Process is urgent old school punk rock that's one of the more impassioned pleas for peace you'll ever hear – and the best song here.

There's a little bit of filler, with some songs drowned by politics, but when Jello gets it right, as he does frequently, it's like the '80s never ended.