31 albums / 39 years deep: Mark E. Smith is still up there, murmurin' and rantin' and ravin', dentures rustling around in gum-slime and nostril-breathing all the while, his newfound careless snarls+trollish growls dutifully sullying and intensifying ("Pledge!" may wind up my Favorite Vocal Performance of 2015). And there's still makeshift backup bands ready to provide him the primitive-synth whine-blurts, various percussion by the boatload, ropey guitar hooks, and skuzzy guitar whatevers he needs. The laugh-out-loud mumbles+bellows embrace scorn, topicality, and the absurd - on a good day, all at once - and will sporadically annihilate the mix just for kicks. As far as the rest of the mishmash goes, it seems he's landed a good crew here - as in they play crashingly, sour, repetitive and strange, could pass for vintage Fall at times ("First One Today", "Auto Chip"), and can whip up some generi-garage-punk to keep up appearances. Notable/deducible subjects include getting prescribed a "bed-wet pill and deep grief", artists' online pleas for "creative money", nondescript Facebook-Troll hysteria (or is it 'baseball chow'?), and remaining in line with aging-post-punk-band stereotypes, shunning modern technology - though at least they're fun+plaintive about it instead of preachy+pompous ("Stop looking at iPhone / Stop looking at iPad-Phone, alright!").
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