Lock up your leftover dignity and break out the chain-link chastity-thongs, because that squirrely lust-gospel demigod Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, Make-Up) has extended his career-long tradition of prestigious-label-hopping and released the first-ever party album on Drag City that works. Forget the learning-disabled dance-thud of King Kong or the road-to-nowhere splack of Chestnut Station; forget the omnipresent Drag City insincerity smirking up the fun-- this disc'll have you blaring its hits out of your Cutlass and smoking non-filtereds in the parking lot at Barely Legal Wings & Biscuits.
Weird War, which includes the Make-Up's Michelle Mae and Royal Trux's Neil "Michael" Hagerty, debuted quietly on last year's indie rock opera Colonel Jeffrey Pumpernickel alongside Stephen Malkmus, Guided by Voices, Black Heart Procession, and a host of other crop-creamers. So the band's name isn't purposely a reference to the current geopolitical clusterfuck (nor do I detect any references to the comic book Weird War Tales). The song "Weird War" is, in fact, a lovely, folky Mae ode to doomed romance that calls to mind the best Kim Gordon cool-downs of the 90s.
The other twelve 2\xBD-minute songs, however, constitute some of the finest frenetic slop-rock of the year, a beefed-up cousin of the Make-Up's singles batch I Want Some. The band holds a guitar clinic for chunky-style licks, unafraid to cop 'boogie' tones and throw crystalline pedal-fests-- you might think Svenonius has hijacked your local moldy-classic station. "Burgers and Fries" is a big-wad juke-joint take on the riff from the Beatles' "Come Together" (aka Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me") that refrains the ugly bumper sticker ultimatum "ass, cash, or grass/ Nobody rides for free"; "Ibex Club" boasts warped horns and a recorder-jam, as if Sonic Youth was conducting a frumpy Veterans' Day Parade marching band; and punk come-hitherings like the raucous "Pick Up the Phone and Ball" sure enough don't grow on trees.
Elsewhere, the phased-to-oblivion guitars of "Who's Who" burst into a bass-and-banjo bridge, and "FN Rat"'s sashaying chords are simply pimpier than anything on the slow-burning Save Yourself. Ian still wields his panic-attack howl, just shy of annoyingly, like he could way back on the Make-Up's fake live album when they were the only group on Dischord sporting silk shirts, and the lyrics still disguise pleasing him as a privilege: "Don't kiss me on the mouth!/ When you can kiss me anywhere else."
As with the Make-Up's catalog, Weird War's packaging is just as entertaining as the disc. Here you get a horrible cover collage that looks like one of Daniel Johnston's hellscapes: look closely for the fascist hedgehog with the tommy gun, General Sherman, and God getting a sensual massage from a lamb. The notes are an "interview" from Hype Hair magazine (consult your newsstand) in which this band perpetuates the Make-Up's velveteen habit of overcontextualizing their rump-shakery as heralding an anarchist revolution. The manifesto is hilarious and informative, providing clues to Weird War's spontaneous song generation (the band professes to have followed the "Texas Instrument Calculator theory of minimal circuitry and isolated components") but also analyzes the Beatles' militarism and punk's emergence as "an attempt to frighten Jackson Browne."
After the White Stripes cashed in with similar retro-riff enthusiasm and schticky uniformity, and Arthur Lee's freedom dulled the Make-Up's anthem "Free Arthur Lee", I feared Svenonius's future would lead to inane preciousness, or worse, Ian sounding like Arsenio Hall's sketchy reverend in Coming to America-- an elated husk of himself playing shows advertised as "An Evening With..." But with Weird War comes new, escapist life. The rating above is no slight; it's exactly what this unambitious high-stepper was aiming for. You're going to need to borrow some of the A*Team's chloroform after playing this one for your guests.
