Review Summary: Brand New You're Retro
McCombs's eighth album once again marks a deceptive shift in style that's actually far more seismic in scope than you at first give credit, a trick that at this stage has become something of a career trademark. At once this album can be considered both Cass's most retro sounding and referential release, yet at the same time it's also clearly his most contemporary and forward looking endeavour to date. In this way 'Mangy Love', with its woozy narcotic feel, would have made an excellent soundtrack for the clever-clever druggy noir detective caper 'Inherent Vice'; each work successfully marries an uncannily rendered retro backdrop to techniques that could only be attributed to the current indie vanguard.
For any long standing fan 'Mangy Love' will make for a strangely contradictory initial listen; most every song here has melodic similarities to previous successes in the McCombs discography and yet the overall feel of this release is one of a deeply satisfying freshness. This is even more remarkable when you consider the dominant aesthetic applied here is of the well trod '70s soft rock meets 80s AOR' variety. Reassuringly 'Mangy Love' never retreats into the tried and tested cutesy era fantasy or kitsch genre exercise territories that, say, an album like Josh Rouse's '1972' was happy to inhabit. No, in actual fact this is McComb's most contemporary release yet, reflecting as it does many of the current leaders of the indie songwriting set (Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile, Father John Misty) while also tipping its cap to the timeless masters (notably Elliott Smith, tellingly producer Rob Schnapf takes residence behind the decks here). Eight albums in and it's apparent just how at ease McCombs has become in his craft, as his combining of these myriad influences seems totally natural.
These twelve compositions never sound in the least bit hurried, each song unfurling like it's own miniature world over four plus minutes and packing enough lyrical intricacies to act like individual short stories. McCombs has never been the flashiest of singers, instead he frequently adopts the storyteller's tone, a steady and warm delivery that allows for frequent witty asides and the occasional well considered burst of dramatic emphasis. The swirly and dreamlike feel to the music means that key phrases and imagery slowly emerge over repeat listens; the political undertones of 'Run Sister Run' or gruesome subject matter of 'In a Chinese Alley' may not be apparent on initial inspection but, sure enough, over time the themes and little details make themselves known to the listener.
Cass always opens his albums with a flourish and 'Bum Bum Bum' keeps up this welcome tradition, easily living up to previous scene setters like 'Dreams-Come-True-Girl', 'I Went to the Hospital' and 'County Line'. It even boasts a similar vocal tic to the latter, the repeated 'bum bum bum's echoing the memorable repeated chorus hook of 'woah woah woah woah woah woah' that so perfectly set the tone on 2011's 'Wit's End'. Second song 'Rancid Girl' sees a jarring shift in style to rickety blues rock, an incongruous switch that again recalls 'Wit's End'; of course on that release the smooth 'County Line' was immediately followed by the bizarrely repetitive music box lament 'The Lonely Doll'. Put it down to a McCombs in-joke perhaps, but as much as 'Rancid Girl' is unlikely to grow into anyone's absolute favourite tune here, over time its impact does mellow a shade; at worst it comes across as a harmless, weaker retread of 'Big Wheel' from this album's predecessor. After this typical goofy detour 'Mangy Love' settles down stylistically for the duration, the easygoing soulful vibes of 'Laughter is the Best Medicine' putting things back on an even keel.
From here on out any peaks and troughs are merely tracing dips of quality as opposed to wildly alternating styles; what makes this album stand out among McCombs's oeuvre is the happy circumstance that any troughs here are far from pronounced, while the peaks in quality have never before been quite so numerous. Indeed at the last count you could easily number seven of these songs among the man's all time greatest; the aforementioned album opener 'Bum Bum Bum' is joined by the disorientating back to back head trips of 'Opposite House' and 'Medusa's Outhouse', the cosmically toned 'Low Flyin' Bird', operatic vocal sampling 'It', toe-tapping 'Run Sister Run' and the 'Scary Monsters'-esque 'In a Chinese Alley'. The latter even boasts some excellent spidery Fripp style guitar work, something totally new to Cass.
Following a sprawling double album it would have been easy for 'Mangy Love' to feel like a somewhat minor release in comparison; impressively this never threatens to transpire, if anything the opposite is closer to the truth. For make no mistake, despite much of the music here falling into the 'airy' category this album remains one meaty mutha. As you'd expect McCombs's experience really shines at this stage of his career and 'Mangy Love' bears all the hallmarks of a perfect culmination of style and skill in the one streamlined package; simply put, this is his most detailed, dense and rewarding listen yet.
