When The Minus 5’s ‘Down With Wilco’ album landed on my desk sometime early in 2003 I was tickled pink by what amounted to a veritable wish list of indie luminaries and a ‘multi-layered tier-cake of sounds and threads’ with tunes and ideas that literally buzzed, shook and rattled. So when this mighty illegal gathering of talents returned with a bevy of other bodies that included the Decemberist’s Colin Meloy and REM’s drummer for hire, Bill Rieflin I was naturally pickled tink. What a shame then to discover that for all the volume of talent this record holds it leaks pitifully on occasions. The problem? The first half of the album leaps uncomfortably between the plodding piano and lumpish drumming of the disgraceful Beatle pastiches ‘This Rifle Called Goodbye’ and ‘My Life As A Creep’ and the shoddy alt-country breeziness of ‘With A Gun’. It’s has a more natural, organic sound than its predecessor, fair enough, but although it yields no small degree of lyrical horseplay and witty wild talk, it doesn’t share that album’s gifts of craft and experience. The quirkiness is there, but not the attention to detail. Shit to the ceiling mayhem, however, is part of the brief and the hollerin’ punk rock rollercoaster that is ‘Aw Shit Man’ dazzles by comparison, as does the jangly hooks and harmonies of ‘Out There In The Maroon’ – which though weak in places, delivers some classic Buck Rickenbacker.
When someone pulls the emergency cord and slows the whole thing down with ‘Cemetery Row W14’ – performed by The Decemberists’s Colin Meloy – fresh from his six-song Morrisey EP – things improve significantly – but not for long, as McCaughley, Buck and Tweedy fall back into the kind of ragtag country ritual best characterised by those dreadful mobile Wilburys, Harrison, Petty and Lynne. Only when ‘Bought A Rope’ crawls into view do things begin to develop. But sadly, it’s all too late.
With such criminal expectations, it’s a wonder it succeeds at all, but it does in its own small way, just not in its entirety.
The Minus 5 features Scott McCaughey / Peter Buck / Bill Rieflin / John Ramberg / Jeff Tweedy / John Stirratt / Glenn Kotche / Mike Jorgensen / Tucker Jackson / John Moen / Jim Talstra / Eric Lovre / Colin Meloy / John Wesley-Harding / Kelly Hogan / Morgan Fisher / Sean Nelson / Ken Stringfellow.