welcome back to the Skaject folks! our record this week is mu330’s Crab Rangoon –
this record is fun, its frantic, its energetic, but i feel very conflicted on records like this. on the one hand, for young or new ska bands, i dont necessarily need tons of polish or structure from records, and frequently a raw edge can be great! but with mu330, im running into an issue ive had with Reel Big Fish, in that it feels like there’s something very immature in the writing style i dont think it’s a huge deal here (RBF bothers me more, but thats more for those albums), but man it puts me on edge when it feels like it could become a trend in the writing style.
like, okay, the record opens with Tune Me Out, a song about a relationship strained by the singer’s partner’s relationship to television. the next song, which is a very solid track, uses the Irish civil war as a metaphor for a split relationship, and Neighbors is like, dripping with insecurity. Understand is uh. well a sarcastic track from the perspective of an unfaithful partner justifying their actions like this is an interesting track to write.
in tracks like Funny Papers, i think that irreverance is leveraged for a decent point in a look at how we discuss cancers in more sensitive places. Father Friendly is also an angry reaction to the Catholic church – it’s discussing child abuse in myriad forms, and there’s a tongue in cheek nature to the approach, but it works here in ways that some of the misogyny elsewhere doesn’t. Fragile is a very sweet moment where the bravado and humor gets swept back for just a second – i like this track a lot, and it shows a shift in the back half towards more forthright songs like The Struggle of Helen and Organic Gun.
the sarcastic, almost spiteful tone is very much a mixed bag for me. i think on the whole i enjoyed this record, but it did have me feeling quite cautious in places – interested to see where they go from here.
faves – Ireland, The Struggle of Helen
dislikes – Neighbors
Crab Rangoon – 5/10
next week, we’re looking at Mephiskapheles’ Maximum Perversion
previous: Honey, I’m Homely | next: Maximum Perversion
previous mu330 release: Chumps on Parade | next: MU-330