The Double Doghouse

hey yall! our album this week is ZONKEY, the 2016 album from Umphrey’s McGee.

i was not expecting what i got out of this record in ant way. i looked up nothing about this album beforehand and was expecting more like Anchor Drops. i keyed into the Radiohead National Anthem baseline in National Loser Anthem but did not recognize the verse when it came in, so the Loser chorus from Beck completely cold clocked me. the bridge transition into In the Air Tonight crom Phil Collins was incredible. i was like, okay, wild, opening it up with a mashup, excellent choice. only to be absolutely delighted by what followed.

i am a massive fan of Neil Cicierega’s Mouth Sounds albums. i look forward to Weird Al’s polkas. mashups are excellent when done well, and man so many of these were done well. Can’t Rock My Dream Face (Michael Jackson’s Rock With You, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams and Can’t Feel My Face from The Weeknd) is one of my faves. the instrumental taking the funky lead from Rock With You, plus the way the choruses are blended so well, it’s just great. Life During Exodus is a sweeping epic of a mashup and probably my fave on the album – Talking Head’s Life During Wartime and Bob Marley’s Exodus make a neat lyrical pair, but man the instrumental chunks in the middle here show what you can do with this type of recreative mashup. i even really liked the way that Electric Avenue to Hell showed them mixing their own music into the mashup of Electric Avenue from Eddy Grant and Highway to Hell from AC/DC.

faves – Can’t Rock My Dream Face, Life During Exodus, Electric Avenue to Hell, Come as Your Kids
dislikes –

ZONKEY – 8/10

i’ll be back next week to listen to The Element of Transition, from Edna’s Goldfish – in the meantime, please let me know what album you’d like me to review below!