Reviewing the Reviewers: "Mclusky Do Dallas"

My former colleague, good friend and fellow Blogostar, Sean Rose mentioned in his most recent blog post, a set of reviews of Todd Rundgren LPs, that I should "UPDATE [my] BLOG, you bastard."

To be fair, it has been a while, since before the new year to be specific, that I've updated this blog.  I guess it's just because nothing has really jumped out at me yet that has seemed like good and obvious fodder for me to review.  A few things have happened in the last half month though that have helped me arrive to this bit of writing.

a.  I've been plowing through a whole bunch of records I haven't heard before.  Now that I'm back at Case Western Reserve, I've got all sorts of access to all sorts of good stuff, so I'm taking full advantage of it.

b.  I've sort of pseudo-officially adapted songwriter/musician/recording engineer/honest businessman Steve Albini as a professional role model.

So, I kinda wanted to write about something Albini-related.  Initially I wanted to do a sort of in-depth, stream-of-consciousness analysis of Shellac's "Prayer to God," probably the most frightening song I've ever heard (and regrettably, still the only Shellac song I've heard... what college radio station doesn't have Shellac CDs?!).  But something like that could obviously get very wordy and obnoxious.  Thankfully, one album has recently stood out as great reviewing material, and it happened to be recorded by Mr. Albini!  Even more important though is that it features the talents of three young, pissed off Welshmen.

ACTUAL REVIEW STARTS HERE

Hoo boy.  Right from the get-go, we've got these subdued, rapid-fire hi-hat hits that are just waiting to explode.  And then we get an urgent, bleating voice shouting out surreal lyrics, "Eat what you are while you're falling apart/And it opened a can of worms!"  And before we know it, we're on a speedy start-stop-start-stop roller coaster of reckless punk youth blasting and beating away at their instruments, heightened by that voice which just will not stop screaming "ARE YOU COMING?!" over and over again, somewhere blurring the line between intense sexuality, and, [gulp], violence.  And then it's all over in under two minutes.

Indie-punks Mclusky (or mclusky, but my OCD just tells me to capitalize the band name.  Sorry.) assembled a rough-around-the-edges, yet tightly performed album in 2002 with their second release, Mclusky Do Dallas.  The band, coupled with produce- I mean, recording engineer Steve Albini's no-bullshit production puts forward thirty-five minutes of turbulent, FCC-disapproved punk rock.

I suppose if Mclusky Does Dallas calls to mind anything in particular, it would be the Pixies, Surfer Rosa era, due to the Albini engineering and Andy Falkous' ranting, schizophrenic, Black Francis-esque vocals.  To pigeonhole the band in this way, though, would do Mclusky a great injustice.  What they've done is they've taken a beloved formula and built upon it, amped it up with even more violence and vitriol and the end result is stunning.

That opening song, "Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues" serves as a brilliant mission statement from the group, and a host of speedy, blistering tunes follows.  Leaving the listeners no time to catch their breaths, "No New Wave No Fun" follows immediately, with the abrasive chorus of "Try and find a better way/There is no other better way" threatening to knock the listeners directly on their sorry asses.  Additional hardcore goodies follow, in the form of the self-explanatory "The World Loves Us and Is Our Bitch," the good-advice-offering "Chases" ("Don't go fucking in the barn because the barn's on fire!" Thanks, guys!), and the album's single, and perhaps its best song, "To Hell With Good Intentions."  That track revolves around simple playground taunts, "My dad is better than your dad," "My band is better than your band."  The one that comes up most often though, is "My love is bigger than your love," an overtly sexual taunt that, when coupled with Falkous' acerbic delivery and the band's persistent dissonance becomes downright threatening.  And with every punctuated "Sing it!" you can almost feel Mclusky shoving your face even farther into the mud.  It all culminated with a firestorm of noise and Falkous screaming over it all like a mad preacher, "And we're all going straight to hell!"  Well, if you say so...

But alas, this is an album with multiple dimensions and tempos.  The band can be just as menacing when they slow things down a bit, as on the humorous, mocking "Collagen Rock" or the most Pixies-esque track on the album, "Alan is a Cowboy Killer." (or should I say, ALANISACOWBOYKILLER!)  "Fuck This Band" has no guitar at all, just a clean, slinky bass line from Jonathan Chapple and slow, steady drums courtesy of Matthew Harding, with Falkous muttering a host of self-deprecating lyrics on top (the best of which is "Fuck this band/Cause they swear too much.")  The end result is exceedingly creepy.

Unfortunately, some of the sentiments of "Fuck This Band" might have been a bit more true than anyone would have figured at the time, because Mclusky broke up three years after Do Dallas was released, with only one more album to follow.  Still, in today's world of ultra-slick pop and hyper-orchestrated indie, it's always a thrill to listen to something from this era that will kick you in the balls as hard as Mclusky Do Dallas does.

Now if only I could play it on the radio...