Emotion is a funny thing, and it seems to be the highest of commodities nowadays in the terms of the heinously named music ‘business’. Right from Dashboard Confessional‘s emergence from a well-loved underground act to pin-up for the MTV generation, to every boy band’s ‘sensitive’ side that is always expressed with a video involving our plucky pre-pubescent heroes being caught in the rain while waiting for the girl that got away. We are constantly bludgeoned into empathising with empty shells of musicians, either through over-exposure of the most internal feelings (I cite Brand New, making public the most private of issues in a genuinely impressive form) or by a constant invocation of familiar sentiments, watered-down just enough to appeal to those sinister and mysterious things, ‘demographics’.
With this in mind, just how the fuck has a slightly ramshackle six-piece ska band from South-East London come up with one of the most gorgeously affecting, yet stunningly enjoyable demo EPs since perhaps Just Another Demonstration?
I’m taking the dearly departed Lightyear as a reference point here, because when I saw the ‘Mustard they reminded me most pertinently of Lightyear without the careless confidence and slightly lacking the most killer or hooks. You know how ‘Kid Dynamite’ is a beautifully scratchy mess that no one can really sing along to until the “She is the reason…†bit? Well that’s the kind of emotion that is on show here. From the cheeky melodies of ‘…And None Of Them Knew They Were Posers’ to the opening “Excuse me, I’m trying to be awkward here†on ‘Far From Home’, CM show themselves to be highly astute at placing simplistic phrasing next to familiar (but never to the point of saturation) ska rhythms that will delight and infuriate in equal measure. There’s nothing particularly revolutionary here – songs about being hungover and girls are complimented by the obligatory quirky cover (in this case ‘Greensleeves’ gets the treatment, and it’s competent enough to be classed as a track in its own right, rather than being a throwaway) – but the point is that CM’s back-to-basics approach is a breath of fresh air in an increasingly self-conscious ska scene.
Take ‘Stuff’ as an example. Any song containing the couplet “I can’t tell you / Just how much I’d like to smell you†has to work pretty damn hard to avoid cliché but funnily enough, it doesn’t. There is no surprising twist in the tail or sudden descent into some crazy ragga stomp, only a straightforward, downright charmingly enjoyable song that has all the energy of a ball-pond full of under-eights. As I’ve said before, CM won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but just as with that Derby mob, the ones that like them will adore the ground they walk on.
Ben
www.colonelmustard.cjb.net
www.nomatesrecords.uni.cc