Weird War are more than just another band pillaging the 70s for inspiration. The ridiculous liner notes and other contextualizations have followed Weird War singer Ian Svenonious since his days in Nation Of Ulysses and the Make-Up, qnd Illuminated by the Light ironically winks so hard it tears up, but this album-- the band's most cohesive to date-- is full of grooves that sincerely want you to dance.
This is Weird War at their most minimal and stoned-- hyper-compressed single-note guitar lines that boogie over thick bass and sparse funky drumming, with Svenonious or singer Michelle Mae calling out lewd comments from the fog. Weird War have been deconstructing clichés since their conception by delivering them with maximum smirk, and Illuminated uses them all so you never have to hear them again. "Girls Like That" is a disco-shuffling highlight but after four minutes, I never have to hear that "Staying Alive" bassline ever again. The story of "Motorcycle Mongoloid" unfolds with purposeful, hilarious tedium, and I've since sworn off "Leader of the Pack"-style narrative songs entirely.
But many of these tracks are clever concepts that are dull in execution and often overstay their welcome, like the vocal ad-libbing at the end of "Crystal Healing" or the fake-out ending of "Illuminated", an otherwise great track with swinging guitar and a well-placed dash of cheap electronic drums. Only "Earth Mama Woman Girl Child" lets its hair down, a drum-cricle acoustic strum with Svenonious returning to his Make-Up mode of falsetto hysterics.
Weird War's eponymous debut was a sloppy, brilliant mess and a hell of a lot of fun, something that has been fractioning with every subsequent release. If brevity if the soul of wit, then part of what made Weird War work was the short songs, and last year's If You Can't Beat Em, Bite 'Em had more variety-- not to mention ass-shakers like "AK-47". Illuminated by the Light is Weird War in command of their craft, but sounding surprisingly sedate.
