McLusky - The Difference between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire

Genre rock Publisher Too Pure Records External Links McKlusky Too Pure Beggars Banquet

There are 206 bones in an adult human's body. On The Difference between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire the Welsh trio, with the help of Steve Albini on production duties, attempt to damage every single one of them. The album is the jawbone. Each track is a carefully designed tooth, some for tearing, some for grinding, some for holding onto your flailing corpse. Most of the time here they do their damn best to splinter, crush & grind you into a fine, easily digestible radioactive dust. But before you can say "Mummy, this McLusky record makes me get hurtings!" the 4 Horsemen pull in the reigns. Disorienting moments of subdued remorse sporadically sprout through the cracks in this muscular predator's leathery skin.

As summer approaches in the southern hemisphere, the youths need a soundtrack to their infantile hedonism in the brain melting heat wave. McLusky have created a wide screen cartoon of sensual derangement and cock-sure immediacy and hyperactive simplicity. There is no "To Hell With Good Intentions"

Opening with the contortionist lead-scrawling of "Without MSG I Am Nothing". This sinister, wide-eyed, snake charmer perfectly depicts the seeming illogical symbiotic relationship of utter confusion and laser-guided precision of their combined vision. As an eastern flavoured guitar writhes over the top of a disjointed backing section it's like the bass has just got it's arthritis medication and is shimmying to test all the joints.

Somewhat disappointingly, McLusky's work is strongest when they more closely resemble the work of their previous effort, 2002's McLusky Do Dallas. The viciously belligerent distorto work-out of "Falco vs. the Young Canoeist" makes for one of the more enjoyable tracks on the album. The oft-cited influence of the Pixies is less obvious, and has always been somewhat unfair, still signposts of various influences are a nice change-up. Echoes of Gang of Four, Slint and Albini's production work on Mogwai's incendiary My Father My King EP are all quite apparent at various points throughout the onslaught. One of the strangest curveballs, though, is the bright, Shins-turn-cannibal, by way of Pavement, that is heard on "She Will Only Bring You Happiness." Also including one of the funniest lines in "our old singer was / a sex criminal" repeated so insistently and so nonchalantly you would think they didn't understand the meaning of what they were singing so care-free.

The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not On Fire is definitely worthy of extended listening, with excellent Albini sonics all the way through, and engaging, exciting songwriting. It makes a lot of sense when you read the liner notes and see that the 3 bands they 'thank' are the Fall, Shellac and Wire, because if in some spazzed out parallel universe those bands procreated and had a child it would sound like this album. But it might be too punk to survive adolescence.