THE EP OF 2020 How The Damned hit a latter-day peak with The Rockfield Files.

Rarely does a year pass in the ongoing saga of The Damned without incident. They’re that kind of band. The first UK purveyors of punk on to vinyl, the first to the US, to split, to re-form. They’ve been this Damned, that Damned, the other Damned, they’ve even been the Doomed (both by name and by nature). But in recent times they’ve pulled off a late-career renaissance that few could have ever expected.

In 2017 their core surviving founding members – vocalist Dave Vanian and guitarist Captain Sensible – along with keyboard player Monty Oxymoron and drummer Andrew ‘Pinch’ Pinching reunited with bassist Paul Gray (with whom they’d previously recorded The Black Album and Strawberries). The re-formed quintet decamped to New York City where they recorded the Evil Spirits album with Bowie/Bolan producer Tony Visconti. It reached No.7 in the UK – their first UK album chart entry since the 80s, their highest UK album chart entry since… forever.

The Damned were on a roll. The Royal Albert Hall followed, before a triumphant 2019 Halloween show (the quite spectacular The Night of A Thousand Vampires at London’s iconic Palladium) gave every indication of being the very pinnacle of the greatest comeback since Lazarus felt well enough to pop out for fags. But, as so often happens to bands incautious enough to name themselves The Damned, fate flipped them the finger as Pinch, their 20-year veteran drummer, unexpectedly tendered his resignation.

In October, as speculation mounted as to their future plans, the band released the results of their final recording sessions with Pinch, at Monmouthshire’s legendary Rockfield Studios, a four-track EP.

The Rockfield Files’ lead single, Keep ’Em Alive, is a bona fide classic, the ultimate Damned line-up all doing what they do best: Vanian’s richly rounded baritone selling a dynamite psych-pop hook, Sensible’s ferociously incisive lead lines interweaving with Gray’s Entwistle-referencing Rickenbacker bass runs, Monty accentuating mood, Pinch driving ever forward from the rear. Its ecological message hammered home by a bee’s-eye view video clip, Keep ’Em Alive is the very definition of classic 21st-century Damned. Noise Noise Noise-alike Manipulator follows, all gang vocals and amphetamine tempo, while The Spider & The Fly showcases the gothic baroque grooves that run through The Damned like veins through blue stilton, before an extended version of their 2019 anthology Black Is The Night’s title track closes proceedings with an epic flourish.

Even before any speculation as to their next move could take hold, The Damned called a socially distanced press conference at London’s Roundhouse to announce that the four original members – Vanian, Sensible, guitarist Brian James and drummer Rat Scabies – are to reunite for a series of UK shows in July 2021.

“They said it could never happen,” Sensible offered at one point. “So much for animosity and malice between this bunch of individuals… Nobody thought we’d ever get together again, but here we are.”

Here indeed. But where next? Your guess is probably as good as ours (or theirs, for that matter), but it’s bound to be one hell of a ride.