The Levellers give a 30 year anniversary, bells & whistles clout to Zeitgeist.

Release Date: 7th November 2025

Label: Rhino

Format: 2LP / 3CD / digital

“The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history.”

FINGERS ON THE ZEITGEIST

The years is nineteen ninety five and the Levs finally name a new album in the spirit with which they’ve run an ongoing series. An album that has been kind to the ‘best of’s and the setlists in the intervening years, the set now earns a 2LP and 3CD revamp. Now for twenty twenty five, in the 30th year of Zeitgeist, the album gets a gutsy and polished remix by Al Scott, the original producer who first sat down with Levellers at their self-sufficient Metway.

At the time sitting alongside Blur and The Charlatans, and doing their bit for the sound of that summer with the likes of Supergrass, Oasis and Pulp, Zeitgeist is a perfect snapshot of a distant time where the future dream was not sullied by any psychodrama. Yet it lives up to its title. Always handy when you’re trying to change the world. It’s an album packed to the brim with poignancy, commentary, melancholy, joy, wisdom and passion. And you also get the late and great Joe Strummer playing on the Just The One – the 2025 remix single version is the ‘go to’ – with apologies to Bellowhead whose version from the later years didn’t make the cut.

THE HITS

Meanwhile, the immediately recognizable regulars, call them ‘the hits’ if you will. Hope Street is that big production opening strike – check out the later acoustic contrast – as the sequence winds through its course with stops offs that see fearsome punk line up against the poignant and observant. The hefty drama of Exodus (the increasingly urgent and hugely effective string arrangement recalling Peter Gabriel’s Signal To Noise) and Men-An-Tol where the massed ranks add a string to the Levs bow. One that marks them as something a little more than angry and shouty young men.

The grand scale production is applied to the filthy blues riffing that gives an emergency service siren swing to P.C.Keen – a commentary song for the zeitgeist of 2025 – “There’s nothing new in this sad story” indeed. A soundtrack given a new lease of life to match the anger and venom. Another belter, Alive is terrifically uplifting and has one of those enormous and ominous string parts lifting the acoustic fervour and ethnic vibe that comes over with the busy percussive parts. As close as The Levs get to Kashmiring their music.

ACOUSTIC MUSINGS

Some of the acoustic musings don’t need to extend far beyond the demos. They offer either an organic rawness or easy gentility. For the latter, see Maid Of The River, that’s almost un-Lev-like and some way from those shouty young men. In the same way, the mandolin gives Forgotten Ground an added folkiness above the bouncing tempo.

Down in the box marked ‘additional tracks’, a couple of faves from the first re-issue are back. The hoedown of Drinking For England and the folky punk charmer Your ‘Ouse that’s a step in the direction of The Boatman with a fun lyric and add a personal favourite Levs line “we had everyone there, who had the bus fare.” Sara’s Beach – matches the Julie poignancy and angst and sees The Levs crossing swords with Roy Harper – “when you dance with the Devil, you can run but you can’t hide” – sharp observation…

reappraise at your will

The under the radar song, Saturday To Sunday, comes over all tender acoustic meanderings that burst into fiddle led life in the fashion that surely inspired many from Green Day to Frank Turner. Add Fantasy to the list while you’re there. The archive also serve up demos, B sides, rarities and outtakes too. Plus some ‘interview’ segments (don’t read too much into these, think more chat and irreverent banter). The acoustic Hope Street takes things to another level – harmonica moaning in the distance , almost Springsteen/Nebraska-esque for a brief moment, there’s a real desolation and desperation hanging in the air.

Amidst the hits and the deserved landmark yet oft overplayed Levelling The Land, a reappraisal of Zeitgeist (and the tour where they seem to be doing all, if not most of the album – we shall soon see…) reveals a depth and huge variety that’s justifiably a match for Levelling… in the legacy.

Spoilt for choice but here’s Just The One:

But we can’t resist adding a personal favourite from under the radar:

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