On their long-awaited reunion record, Mclusky don’t assume the role of serious elder statesmen of punk—and thank God for that. They’ve sidestepped the indignity that often comes with gettin’ the band back together, mostly because Mclusky understand better than anyone that dignity is overrated. On the world is still here and so are we, there’s no grandstanding, no illusion of self-respect, no demand to be taken seriously, because none of that was ever Mclusky’s goal to begin with.
the world is still here is the Welsh band’s first new record since 2004’s The Difference Between Me and You Is That I’m Not on Fire and far and away their most invigorating since the Steve Albini-produced classic McLusky Do Dallas. It’s not merely a return to their old ways, nor does their long-teased reunion feel like a cynical, nostalgia-fueled cash grab. Instead, the record is a series of reminders of what Mclusky are still capable of—whether that’s melting faces in under a minute with “juan party-system” or the razor’s-edge guitar hammering driving “the digger you deep.” the world is still here brings the band’s signature early-’00s vulgarity into our post-Brexit, Trump-dominated moment, bearing traces of singer and guitarist Andrew “Falco” Falkous’ other band, Future of the Left, in balancing full-throated (but not heavy-handed) political call-outs with a characteristic indifference to respectability or piousness.
Take the slow-chugging “people person,” which rides its refrain—“lotta people lotta people lotta people”—to a callout of the milquetoast moderates who stay silent in the face of injustice and later claim they were always on the right side of history. It’s hard to hear the song’s final lines and not think of self-professed “progressives,” for example, who continue to ignore or excuse the ongoing genocide of Palestinians: “Exploding kids, exploding kids, exploding kids can kill the mood/Can kill the mood if kid explosions aren’t your heart’s desire … A lot of people like to be wise after the event.”
It’s tough to picture an American equivalent of Mclusky; you need a lived-in hatred of the crown and a specifically British flavor of crassness to make music that sounds like their 2001 track “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues” or its 2020s counterpart, “the unpopular parts of a pig.” The latter reignites the clobbering shred of its predecessor and matches the speed and irreverence of its motormouthing, as Falkous sings, “Delicate seeds come from delicate flowers/that was the horseshit she fed me for hours.” Mclusky aren’t a well-oiled machine so much as a demolition derby-ready junker that’s banged up to all hell but can still withstand plenty of battering. Falkous’ uncannily versatile voice is in command throughout it all, as he growls about “money makers makin’ mooooooooooves” like a rabid dog on “cops and coppers,” stretches the vowel sounds in “the competent horse thief” in a way that toes the line between brilliance and insufferability, and patters, “Tell me you’re Banksy without being Banksy” before scromiting the bridge of “kafka-esque novelist franz kafka.”
There’s a brilliant vulgarity to Mclusky in a John Waters or Jackass kinda way—the guy who once bragged “My dad is bigger than your dad!” with his whole chest now spits, “The truth is more complex than that/According to your fucking dad,” proving that age (or even a more developed political consciousness) doesn’t necessarily clean up one’s dirtbag attitude—and that’s sometimes for the better. the world is still here doesn’t deviate from the band’s history of making dirty, scuzzy rock music, but it doesn’t feel like an attempt to shoehorn a 2000s rock record into the 2020s. If anything, the album feels like a testament to the band’s consistency—how their approach still feels useful because of just how little has changed in the world. Mclusky haven’t outgrown their signature abrasive sound or crude turns of phrase; rather, they’ve redirected them, channeling their characteristic crassness into scathing political critique. They know that there’s (still) no shortage of ugliness in modern life; the world is still here and so are we pukes it all back up—fast, bloody, and in your face.
