Or to give the preposterously entitled album it’s full name ‘This May Be The Reason The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing Cannot Be Killed By Conventional Weapons!’ With a title like that we really do need to put the fuckers to the test, it will be worth it if they bleed a little.
Do you detect a bit of comedy behind the act here? If so you will be right as the group are led by ‘Cult occult comedian Andrew O Neill someone the glossy metal mags have been fawning all over in a quite nauseating fashion. This writer does not mind a little bit of comedy in metal but he does hate stand up comedians and absolutely disagrees with them being given the time of day on music festival bills wasting space that could be given to well deserving hard working bands. Piss off and set up your own festivals I say and keep music and stand up separate.
The Men That….. are not all about stand up thankfully and do have in their ranks members who played in the like of much respected bands (by me) Creaming Jesus and Lords Of The New Church. They have some rather good ideas as well basing their look around the steampunk image and in line with this, cleverly constructed songs dealing with Victoriana themes. Beneath the waistcoats, explorer hats and flying goggles though what about the music, is it any good? Well yes it is in its own grubby way and when they are playing it and not going through a clichéd comedy routine, which they do occasionally sink into.
After an intro worded by Dr Who, Sylvester McCoy, we steam into a muggy punk bombast ‘Victoria’s Secret’ addressing the fact that Prince Albert is back and hungering for Victoria’s brains in all his zombie glory. It is a pogo laden number that is bound to have the kids jumping up and down in the pit and moshing like good uns. We then go all Wurzels, meet Chas and Dave for ‘Margate FHTAGN’ which is a trip to the seaside and a meeting with Cthulu who is summoned up with death-laden leviathan growls. It’s fun and did actually have me giggling a little and I would much rather be listening to it than Fiddler’s bleeding Dram. There are a couple of political numbers from the era included too and we have ‘Doing It For The Whigs’ injecting a punk rock protest song and transporting the three chord sounds of 1977 back a hundred years.
The album is short, only around 36 mins, and at times there are obvious fillers like the very annoying one trick (oh so rebellious let’s snigger about masturbation) number ‘The People’s Common Sense Medical Advisor.’ We already have one Kunt And The Gang thank you very much. ‘Brunel’ tries to throw some Dead Kennedys riffing and Peter And The Test Tube Babies gob laden vocals into a song about (well you did take your history exam didn’t you)? Elsewhere we have ‘Tesla Coil’ an electrifying ode about Nikola Tesla and one of the albums better songs due to its persuasive melody and amusing lyrical rhyming. Politically I loved ‘Mutiny In The Common Soldiery’ as it finally attempts to do something serious and political and has the spirit of the likes of New Model Army and Chumbawamba behind it.
Whatever I think of this hardly matters in the least anyway. This lot are destined to get a huge amount of attention and end up on all the festival bills that will be queuing to snap them up. As it stands it is better than average but after a few listens I am already skipping songs and finding some of the jokes tedious. If you want to leave your brains at the door, are a slight history geek and are not after anything particularly challenging though it should do you for a month or so.
(6/10 Pete Woods)
27/02/2012 at 3:57 pm
I do believe I just laughed my arse off. I lurves a good gimmick. 😀