There is a becrazed struggle and bemused incensement at work in 47 Smells of Anarchy. At its heart are painterly flourishes that draw on both the sacred and profane. With a dextrous ear Hughes is capable of shifting between the colloquial modern-day language of the street and a search for the mysticism in life.
The collection of lyrical verse is a pseudo spiritual pilgrimage through our hopes, fears, and loathing, our choices and regrets. His bruised intellect clearly draws from the Metaphysical poets, delivering a strange brew of Romantic cynicism, the world represented as a place of tender reckoning and nutty sledgehammer blows.