| It’s taken almost a year and a half for The Mules to follow up their debut EP, ‘Grab Your Musket’. Luckily, with their debut album due in a few swift months, such delays will not become habitual. While it was the absurdly catchy ‘Polly O’ that highjacked The Mules’ opening EP, ‘Here To Help’ is simply a statement of intent. It provides a stark and deliberate forewarning that the full-length release will be more than just fifteen variations of ‘Polly O’s’, stomping cowpunk.
And it also happens to be two and a half minute of quirky brilliance. ‘Here To Help’ sits in the rather uncomfortable company of a Hitchcock score, 21st century Waits and ‘Ice Cream for Crow’ era Beefheart. The detached piano tapping and screeching violin purveys the song’s overriding paranoia superbly. As does Ed Seed’s frantic and, at times, almost panicked delivery. ‘Here To Help’ may not necessarily be an easy listen, yet it is still perversely catchy.
On the other side is a reworking of the traditional ‘The Devil & The Ploughman.’ Even shorter than ‘Here To Help’, it is far more of a Mules controlled jam, more reminiscent of Grab You Musket’s modern country takes of ‘Rhino’ and ‘Problems With Exits.’
But it’s ‘Here To Help’ that really matters and if it is a statement, it is a devastatingly clear one. The Mules have possibly shown us the two extremes of their debut LP, but have done so without really showing their hand. When they do, it could just provide one of the most original debut releases in years.
Written by Padraic Haplin for www.raggedwords.com. |
