I guess we're at a point where Mission of Burma's post-reunion accomplishments shouldn't be met by shock and amazement. But, considering how fantastic The Obliterati sounds, I'm tempted to offer the sort of breathless hyperbole that press agents would love to quote, something along the lines of "every band in the world would die to make this record" or "makes onOFFon sound like a barber-shop quartet afflicted with food poisoning." If you get enough beers in me, I'll probably even claim that it's their best LP to date. Suffice it to say that this record is very, very good.
One thing The Obliterati has over its post-reunion predecessor is continuity and cohesiveness. As good as onOFFon is, it's still the work of three guys who hadn't played together for nearly 20 years. The tongue-in-cheek title acknowledged as much, as did the vinyl-referencing 15 seconds of silence separating the first eight tracks and the final seven on the CD version of that record. That there were more than a few dips into the past (both in Burma's catalog, and in Roger Miller's own songbook) also speaks to this hesitancy. In retrospect, the album sounds less like a coherent statement and more like a disparate (albeit excellent) collection of songs. Contrast that with The Obliterati, the work of a group that's totally comfortable, and confident, within its own skin. It takes chutzpah to title a song "Donna Sumeria" and, smack dab in the middle of the song, quote (with all due respect) Ms. Summer's "I Feel Love". It takes skill to make it work.
Burma offer a fitting epigram for their plan of attack via the title "Careening With Conviction", and as soon as Peter Prescott kicks off "2wice" with his free-wheeling drum kit abuse, the album puts the pedal to the floor. The absurd and haunting cut-and-paste imagery of "1001 Pleasant Dreams" ("You said my name was hyper-allergenic/ You said I was not hyper-real") abuts the bare-bones Big Blackness of "Good, Not Great". Another Consonant-sounding track from Clint Conley ("Is This Where?") is right at home preceding the gloriously crotchety Prescott rant ("Period"). Roger Miller's "13" has enough room for cello, patented Burma bam-thwok, and glistening harmonics. While the album's closer, "Nancy Reagan's Head", has enough room for references to mesomorphs and the sacroiliac, loops of faux-Gregorian chants, and the soon-to-be-classic couplet, "And I'm haunted by the freakish size of Nancy Reagan's head/ No way that thing came with that body."
As for the group's aforementioned conviction, it's to its credit it can make a statement without the need of a soapbox or a bully pulpit. Sure, the band were proud supporters of John Kerry's failed run for the White House, its been known to take the stage with a banner proudly proclaiming NO NEW MCCARTHY ERA, and the LP contains references to the Reagans, the Middle East, and planes falling out of the sky. The message here, however, isn't a proselytizing one, but an inspiring one. One of the reasons the sound of marching feet has such an allure is because it's the sound of people doing something for a cause. Whether that cause is personal or political is immaterial-- it's the act of putting your weight behind something that's key, and that's what Mission of Burma are doing. They're making their noise their way, the same way they did some two decades ago. And it's a sound as vital and inspirational as ever.
