Mclusky: the world is still here and so are we

It’s been, what, twenty-one years since we got our last Mclusky album. Shit, it’s been almost that long since the last season of Stranger Things. We just need to be more patient, people. You would have thought almost a quarter of a century would have mellowed these dudes, but nah, they’re even more abrasive and yell-y than before. More atonal, more like a punk version of the “The National Anthem” episode of Black Mirror. Which feels oddly 2025, truth be told, politicians having sex with pigs and whatnot.  But the general air of middle-finger throwing is Mclusky’s aesthetic. And they are throwin’ a lot on the world is here and so are we (lowercase intentional).

As if I’m not disturbed enough by the weird clown on the cover of the album… Seriously, man, what posseses one to even think about having a clown anywhere near your record? I have to assume it’s some sort of deep hero worship or 1991’s self-titled Mr. Bungle album, which also features a fucked-up clown and was, of course, penned by their current Ipecac label owner, Mike Patton. Which, when you really think about it, is a big influence on their current music. The bass that sounds as if it’s being struck by a mallet, the repeating, swirling circus guitar and the talk-singing-carnival barker yelling about whatever the hell off-kilter British shit they’re yelling about. Like the caveman version of Primus. Or a stripped-of-blues Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. It is not a particularly pleasant listen. Not even remotely tuneful or hook-y like Mclusky Do Dallas. Which, in retrospect — and as one of my favorite albums of that era — was more of an outlier in their tiny oeuvre than the norm.

I’m honestly trying to get a handle on this album, but maybe I’m just overthinking it. It’s a sometimes lumbering, sometimes out-of-time anachronistic anger-heavy record about British society, maybe? Bands just don’t make these kind of albums anymore. The Gen-Zs aren’t into generalized finger-in-the-air, anti-system sentiment. Sure, they can be emo and shit, but this “I may be a scumbag, but you’re the real problem” stuff that Mclusky puts out there just doesn’t feel of this century. Especially when it’s delivered in this Welsh-accented English music that seems written only for their own amusement. And perhaps Patton’s. I do think that some of the biting lyrics and rollicking bang of the music has lost some of its nuance and shock value it may have had in 2002 when we still had shocks left to give. Now the clever just comes off as older guys yelling at clouds as our leaders drive the world toward infinite moral decay.