To be honest, I never really thought Mclusky had much of a chance. Given that most indie rock seems predicated upon being either deeply fucked up (see: Xiu Xiu, Smog, Shellac), or pretty-darned-nice (see: everyone else), there isn't much room to be...just kind of a jerk. If, as my friend Raf has suggested, bands like the Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and Brainiac make up a de facto subgenre of "evil indie rock," Mclusky could be best be classified as "asshole indie rock"-- direct, obnoxious, and unapologetic. On this 3xCD retrospective, the now-defunct Welsh trio offers up an excellent CD of the band's singles and two discs of subpar B-sides and rarities and live tracks, cramming together the band's very best and very worst material into one awkward and probably excessive package.
Disc one features most of Mclusky's best songs; because it's a singles collection, a few of the necessarily omitted album tracks are missed, but there are zero duds. The formula here is straightforward and self-evident: crunchy guitars, booming drums, fuzzed out bass, and Andy Falkous's curiously expressive sing-scream. Given the relative consistency of Mclusky's sound, the strength of these particular songs comes down to hooks. At their best, Mclusky can turn something as simple as a tuneless two-syllable utterance into a song-carrying hook. In a nuts-and-bolts way, it's a skillful and economical manipulation of rhythm and momentum, but the x-factor is attitude. Like the douchebag at the bar whose obnoxious antics you secretly cherish, the giddy, petty belligerence conjured by Mclusky is infectious.
A few of the better songs from the band's rough-and-tumble debut My Pain and Sadness Is More Sad and Painful Than Yours get the A-sides disc off to a promising start, but things really pick up with the selections from Mclusky's finest album, Mclusky Do Dallas. "Whoyouknow", "Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues", "To Hell With Good Intentions", and "Alan Is a Cowboy Killer," are taut, merciless, and concise, perfectly captured by Steve Albini's similarly taut, merciless, and concise production. The non-album single "There Ain't No Fool in Ferguson" is my favorite here, coupling a television commercial-catchy guitar line with playful alliteration to the tune of "hopeless hepatitis piss-rag Molotov cocktail mono-brow shithole."
And then there are the other discs. Compilations like this are always a no-win situation: If the B-sides eclipse the A-sides, then the band clearly has no idea how to gauge their own material, and effectively sold short their own career. If the B-sides fall substantially short of the A-sides, then compiling them is potentially unnecessary. In this case, the B-sides sound like much shittier versions of the A-sides. So, at the very least, Mclusky should be commended for putting their best foot forward. Surprisingly, the third disc of rarities and live performances-- so-called "C-sides"-- proves more rewarding than its alphanumeric predecessor, showing a more versatile and unchecked side of the band.
As is usually the case with these things, the three-disc version of Mcluskyism works better as an archive than it does a unified listening experience. Diehards, I'm sure, would love to include a choice "C-side" like "Colour March" or "Cradling" on a mix CD, but most people will find the condensed version of Mcluskyism to be just right. At one disc, it's a gleeful kick in the ribs. At three, it's a slightly-harder-than-appropriate punch in the arm.
