Mclusky - Mcluskyism (Too Pure)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Mclusky seem a strange band to compile. Not because anything here sounds out of place when taken from the familiar, comfortable surroundings of its album home (it'd be fun to try to assert that each of their three LPs was a scrupulously assembled, utterly coherent, solid as steel piece which couldn't be chipped away at to reveal individual songs so much as it was meant to be digested as a whole, as it just doesn't seem to be true), but because it just doesn't seem like the kind of thing they'd do. They pre-empt such queries in the sleeve notes. 'Yeah, and, so, what?', they reply... 'Big Black did it.'
But that was pretty weird also, wasn't it? Let's not get in to the selling out debate, it's not about that. If Mclusky had signed for a major and whored themselves around the world getting these bastard tunes on every radio and television show possible I'd have been right there shouting obscenities along with them as they counted the cash they deserved. But a singles collection just isn't something many of us thought we'd see. Perhaps because we felt there was so much more that could be done with this. Perhaps we're not resigned to Mclusky not being a band anymore. Perhaps? No, definitely.
So this is a wake, just with a better soundtrack than most. The closest thing you'll get to 'Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)' (apparently the most popular song at funerals recently, so someone read, somewhere) is 'She Will Only Bring You Happiness', and they even ruin any possible hope they had of turning that in to the hit single we'd have loved to have seen it become by chanting "our old singer was a sex criminal", in a round, until the record ends. It can, on this evidence, be nearly as fun to reminisce as it was to hear the joke the first time round.
Yeah, jokes, they're everywhere. They were dark, horrible, nasty people, even to their mums, but Mclusky were also a funny bunch of f**kers, that's for sure. 'Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues' is as deliberately, unashamedly offensive and vital as it gets, 'To Hell With Good Intentions' and its tales of taking "more drugs than a touring funk band" contains some of the greatest lyrics ever spat in to a microphone, and the cuckoo noises in the great lost single 'Without MSG I Am Nothing' are the one piece of light humour that takes away from what is otherwise the most sinister piece of rock 'n roll since Lou Reed told a bunch of kids their mum had just died and recorded their screams. And it's during said tune that suddenly one realises - shit - Mclusky were just about the catchiest band ever, too.
Every critique of a truly decent retrospective attempt will end with readers being beseeched that they search out the actual albums if this is anything like their cup of tea, and this one is no different. Well, perhaps skip the first one, that still just sounds like a mess - its scratchy, half arsed efforts here not standing up to either middle or late period work. The rest of it is difficult to fault, the only virulent words you'll want to throw their way will be ones lambasting them for stopping just as they'd been releasing the best stuff they'd ever done. Hey, at least now they never get old, and leave us with this, a Mclusky greatest hits, a record as brilliant as the idea of it is both strange, and due to the necessary band implosion behind its being put together, a mighty shame.
Artists in this article: Mclusky
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