mclusky: Between a rock and hard spirits

New and improved, that is a short assessment of mclusky’s third album, ‘The Difference Between You and Me Is That I’m Not on Fire’. The new music is accompanied by a new drummer [Jack Egglestone] and the time since the last disc [‘mclusky Do Dallas’, April 2002] was busy and eventful: the Cardiff lads toured everywhere and got embraced by eager rock fans, broken many a string, survived a near-fatal tour bus crash…

Rock’n’Roll, eh? Again produced by Steve Albini in his studio outside Chicago, this is a darker affair with longer songs, a tad more complex arrangeemnt that strive for epic within the rock idiom. The result is a more accessible album but without losing on being food for spirits. Top Welsh outfit, alongside Super Furry Animals, and way above Manics, Lostprophets… They also pish all over Muse, as well.

Lifting off with a wacky and chanty cloud of noise on ‘Without MSG I Am Nothing’ where enveloping darkness mentioned repeatedly in the lyrics gives it a Gothic-ambient although it is succeeded by bass-driven [in the best Stranglers tradition] fury of ‘That Man Will Not Hang’. Loser tonality prevails in ‘She Will Only Bring You Happiness’ as if that is something bad when most of us would kill for love.

Bless their black punky socks, mclusky have a sense of humour as well: the totally unhinged marching-like trumpet-adorned ‘Forget About Him I’m Mint’. Or, ‘Kkkitchens, What Were You Thinking’ that maniacally burns ahead as if the last song on the planet! And that baaad, robust, rampant, down-tuned bass reappears! As well as on ‘1956 and All That’; Jon Chappie is the provider of this great playing. Bliss!!!

Such explosion is followed by acoustic intro, worthy of Led Zeppelin, elevated via drums to guitaring stratosphere for ‘Your Children Are Waiting For You To Die’ that is a cross between Van der Graaf Generator and The Sex Pistols. [No, despite your concern, I don’t drink during daytime.] Singer/guitarist Andrew Falkous’s world is a sensuous one…

‘Icarus Smicarus’ goes back to the boys’ wilder side, with ‘Slay!’ being another whisper-to-eruption song before ‘Seamus’ gets all the attention on fury on ‘You Should Be Ashamed, S.’ The delicacy comes at the very end when ‘Support Systems’ starts unravelling its many layers - minimal, hyper, apocalyptic, dramatic, peaking all over its near-8 minutes only to end by petering out into - silence.

The copious title is actually a fib - mclusky are burning like pyres of [others'] hopes... Music should be a reaction against everything that is going on around an act.

8/10