Last year, your reviewer got a pleasant surprise when confronted by terminal UK indie underachievers Seafood and their "When Do We Start Fighting?" album. What I'd dismissed in advance as more of the same spineless also-rannery actually proved to be muscular, thrilling stuff.
No offence to David Line and co's songwriting, but part of this transformation surely took place thanks to Seafood hooking up with Girls Versus Boys' Scott McLeod and relocating to New York to record. And now, MCLUSKY, another bunch of previously dowdy UK stalwarts are undergoing another such exhilarating seachange thanks to some timely US action.
To be fair, I always thought Mclusky had something going on there, but thanks to the inevitable Steve Albini they're sounding bloody great here with "Undress For Success": one of those synapse-baiting, bug-eyed and catchy guitar pop kook-out affairs that sounds so ridiculously natural you wonder how someone couldn't have written it before. Ironically, I'm going to a wedding reception the night of writing this review and when Mclusky gibber out that brilliant chorus: "Grenades, sickles and hammers for the happy couple!" it's just inspirational! That's my last minute wedding present sorted, then.
The other two EP tracks were also birthed at the springtime Chicago sessions with Albini at the helm and "Join The Mevolution" (what??) sounds as heavy and malevolent as anything from Nirvana's "In Utero" session, with an additional layer of psychosis for good measure. "We want our jobs back!" scream our Cardiff heroes over scraggly, punk-funk guitar, threatening, rubbery basslines and a snare sound worthy of a demolition ball. It's short, nasty and as effective as a stab in the ribs.
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"The Salt Water Solution" wraps things up. Slower, brooding and again only barely containing the psychotic, shredded nerves, it's typically gnarly, Albini-derived Math rock, but none the worse for that, dropping down into a slo-mo section towards the end recalling The Fall's fork-tongued "Hip Priest" before the muttered "what's wrong with getting what you want?"catchline finally erupts in molten anguish.
Spiky, angular and suprisingly Zeitgeist-friendly in these punk-funk embracing times, Mclusky suddenly sound like they have what it takes to be hip. Whether that's relevant to their development probably isn't important,though. The fact that they now sound really good is. Long may it continue.
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