Close to ten years after they last went into the studio (and nearly 30 after they cut their first album),
MX-80
are remarkably still intact (the core trio of
Bruce Anderson
,
Dale Sophiea
, and
Rich Stim
are all still onboard) and if the band's attack isn't as aggressive as it once was,
We're an American Band
reveals they're as smart and adventurous as they've ever been. Guitarist
's endless waves of guitar sonics, occupying a middle ground between
hard rock
assault and
art rock
texture and fragmentation, are still very much the star of this show, and his layers of lovely noise swell and shift throughout these 13 songs, often leaving the melodic backbone to the other instruments but always setting the tone for each tune.
's dry, semi-ironic vocals sometime suggest that
Steven Wright
is fronting the band, but the deadpan humor of his lyrics makes them all the more effective on songs such as
"Don't Hate the French,"
the love-song parody
"You Turned My Head Around,"
and
"Cry Uncle,"
a tribute to some remarkable parental siblings. And while
often subtly (and in the case of
not so subtly) deals with the travails of American life during the
George W. Bush
administration, there's enough dark wit and imagination in these songs to prevent the commentary from becoming strident, and the ebb and flow of the music, with
electronic
accents easing in and out of the banks of guitar, is compelling no matter what
Stim
has to say. Rich, witty, adventurous, and satisfying,
is a thoroughly contemporary album from a band still walking along the edges in their fourth decade of making music. ~ Mark Deming