Pull up a stool, here come the first fruits of the post-split Mclusky fallout. Or, erm, at least there they went. Did you catch a glimpse before the reasonably ripe casing disintegrated chaotically and wastefully with a comic book “SPEEERLAT!” up against that wall, back across the ceiling and dripped into your hair? Now, who’s going to clean that up? Jon Chapple, you might recall, was the apparently lunatic bassist nutjob from Cardiff’s noisiest, most literate, funniest, most lightsabre cock-sucking blusiest punks. He marked his territory by clambering onto amps, shaking his head very fast indeed wherever possible and screaming until the veins in his neck were within a millimetre or less of making a serious, messy breakout attempt.
The turnaround for the album’s unveiling was certainly quicker than the wrought gap between Mclusky’s last two albums, and in a way it shows. This definitely does sound like a record Jon Chapple would want to make, accommodating his characteristic impulses with all the glory that lo-fi recording techniques can muster. In fact this deserves no more than lo-fi, and we mean that as no sort of condemnation. But it does lack the discipline that made Mclusky’s tunes step above and beyond expectations and turned them into the muscular shaven-headed Stephen Fry of angry post-Grunge rallying. Nonetheless it is a playful album with no apparent regard for expectations and some real peaks.
The tallest of these, first single ‘The Pink Ink’, is like The Melvins jousting jovially with Pavement, shouting like you do at a gig in order to be heard, even though they’re cutting through quite clearly and there’s really no need. It’s ridiculously moreish and follows on smoothly from Mclusky’s tendency to thin things out, sharpen the blades and have a harmless jig, at points on their final record. The rest of the album is really Jon screeching quasi-clever couplets over jaunty, muted strummers or noisy clangers. ‘Four Eyed McClayvie’ sounds like Sesame Street on industrial chemicals and is lean as a runner bean and ‘The Long And Short Of It’ sounds like a faintly chilled Breeders track with a wounded dog on lead vocals, which is kind of cool. So Mclusky disappeared, then came Shooting At Unarmed Men. It’s not like losing your last pack of fags on a desert island and then finding them again. But it is sort of like finding a nicotine patch.