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Organ Grinder Press - interviews and reviews
The Mules: Losing Today magazine review of 'Grab Your Musket'.
May 23, 2005 |
| So how would you like your head sir – scrambled or poached? This corking 6 track debut is the weird result of caffeine overdosing, all at once restless, rampant, wickedly riotous and probably best listened to while under the influence. This release comes courtesy of those nice people at Organ Grinder HQ the same people who gave us the debut Fireworks Night full length a few months ago which much to our embarrassment we forgot to review despite raving frequently about in these very pages no less. The Mules then, never has the description wired been more apt or for that matter fitting, a debut full length due early next year ‘Grab your Musket’ is an alluring albeit head bending taste of the quintet’s eccentric personality. The Mules are the bastardised result of a genetic fusion gone wrong involving discarded elements of Captain Beefheart, early Talking Heads (especially on the psychotically fucked up funk and sharp as needles ‘Misprint’), even earlier Sparks, a shed load of really bad drugs and copious amounts of warped vision. Exactly who this will appeal to is pretty much anyone’s guess as there are so many disjointed styles present here that you’re almost spoilt for choice, each of these cuts are each like an impish operetta in their own right arguably concocted by lunatics who’ve given the slip at the local asylum. Perhaps most bizarre of all the vaguely creepy and off centre surrealism of the overwhelmingly funereal ‘Problems with Exits’ takes some beating, banjos, fiddles and pianos collide in dissembled Cossack formations almost reminiscent of those early Wedding Present outings as the Ukrainians. Elsewhere there’s the crookedly spasmodic derailed Mersey sound via the Mississippi delta of the unrealistic ramshackle rumble of ‘Ham Shank’ which disturbingly gathers in pace to such an extent that you fear your hi-fi will melt before its skull crunching finale has passed. ‘Polly – O’ is an unruly festering cocktail of stuttering corrupt punk meets white funk stylising like a frayed Half Man Half Biscuit being tied, bound and kicked to within an inch of their lives by the Nightingales and ‘Monkeys’ era Higsons. ‘Stamp Collecting’ reveals old pre pantomime Adam and the Ants tendencies yet it’s left to ‘Rhino’ to provide the sets best moment with its vibrant barn dancing pogo and snagging hook lines. Pop – but not as you know it (yet) and a worthy addition to any half decent record collection.
Written by Mark Barton for Losing Today Magazine (www.losingtoday.com), May 2005.
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