The Waco Brothers should be awful. There shouldn't be any way possible on God's green earth that a British art-punk with anarchosyndicalist leanings could put together a band that includes an acknowledged ex-member of KMFDM on pedal steel guitar and make credible-sounding circa-1960 roots country. Worse, this lot of expats do it a lot better than most Americans of the same ilk.
Admit it. It rankles a little bit when someone from exotic climes with his or her own cultural legacy waiting to be exploited comes along and exploits ours better than we do. By all rights, Jon Langford's roots project ought to be a collection of rockin' madrigals and ballads about flowers. We've got a brace of alt-country upstarts who can defame our glorious traditions just fine, thanks. Where does this pack of goofy bastards get off thinking they can one-up our national heritage?
But they do, damn it. Jon Langford has always utilized his extracurricular time with the Wacos to exorcise the C&W; demons that have lurked in his work with the Mekons since the 1980s. Where great Mekons albums integrate a vaguely folkish, space cowboy vibe, the Waco Brothers sound like real-deal ten-gallon hatters with a grouchy streak and a subscription to The Nation. There are no body-positive-feminist allegories about pirates to be found here. Sure, there's a William Blake nod on occasion, but mostly, Langford and co-singer/songwriter Dean Schlabowske invoke the spirit of the common man, crank up the hollow-body guitars and rock their wary ways.
Hoping for artistic growth is completely off the subject when talking about the Waco Brothers. After all, the band's an acknowledged nostalgia act. All the same, despite its bellicose title, Electric Waco Chair finds our boys in a relatively contemplative mood: the songs center generally on getting older; the tempos aren't nearly as frantic as they've been in the past; and the jokes here are at least a little bit subtler. The Wacos still want to be the party band in the honky-tonk at the end of the world, but they've come to realize they need a couple slow jams for couples to dance to.
Chair, eager to please as other Waco offerings, includes a brace of crowdpleasers. The air of scabrousness that hovers over most Mekons projects isn't anywhere to be found here, replaced instead with a rummy goodheartedness in short supply among independent-label socialists these days. Langford seems unnecessarily into channeling Billy Bragg at times-- particularly on the egregious "Walking on Hell's Roof Looking at the Flowers"-- and some of the arrangements are a little shticky, like when the Brothers attempt a Spanish-flavored feel on "Cornered." But nit-picking individual moments here is pointless spoil-sportsmanship. It's like going to a great rent party and complaining that the beer sucks.
The Waco Brothers aren't about flawless, detailed songcraft. They're about lager-soaked good times with just enough anxiety and doubt to make the trip worth taking. And, in that respect, Electric Waco Chair never disappoints. Though these fellas don't take the country idiom as seriously as your favorite American punk-countryist might, they sure have a great time doing their work.
If anything, their irreverence toward country music is what separates the Waco Brothers from the herd. Where American revivalists are frustratingly serious about their music, treating country like holy writ, the Waco Brothers don't have the same stake in it. Because it's not their history, they can treat it as a contemporary event and return it to the go-for-broke fun spirit behind all that worship old-time tunage gets subjected to. Besides, who wants to listen to madrigals all day, anyhow?
