plorentz's Full Review: The Obliterati by Mission Of Burma
Here's one of the things I like about Mission of Burma: In that section of their liner notes where other 80s vintage rock veterans might enumerate the many noble causes they support, listing mailing addresses for PETA and Amnesty International and Greenpeace along with messages urging listeners to, y'know, get involved and write a letter or something, Mission of Burma deliver this humble message: Mission of Burma support shuffle play. I like that Mission of Burma's big cause has to do with a certain, perhaps under-rated, method of playback. I generally support shuffle play too, but that's only when I've got 200 gig of .mp3s for WinAmp to shuffle. I would certainly never shuffle an actual album. It seems sorta sacrilegious. But because Mission of Burma support it - well hey, I'll do it for them.
Here's another thing I like about Mission of Burma: They are now two albums (or three, if you count the live Snapshot, released via iTunes last year) into their second life. I'll explain. For the two decades following their premature break-up (after one EP, one LP, and a live album) in 1982, the trio of Roger Miller (gtr,vox), Clint Conley (bass,vox), and Peter Prescott (drums,vox) have been primarily known as the legendary founding fathers of Boston's vital indie rock scene. But as Bob Dylan might say, they're much younger than that now. (For this evening's performance, the part of Martin Swope, the tape manipulator, will be played by Bob Weston.) The Obliterati, initially released as a very limited edition subscription series of custom-crafted 12" vinyl singles this spring (how very shuffle-able!), finds the band playing as if they've only just started.
More good news: The Obliterati comes with photographic evidence of their younger-than-yesterdayness: a DVD of the band performing four songs live, playing like unruly (but generally harmless) teenagers, Clint ripping at the strings on his bass like a kid picking at scabs, Peter pounding his set like an imitation of Animal (y'know... from the Muppet Show?), and Roger (who has lost much of his hearing due to the band's notoriously loud live shows) sporting a pair of gigantic headphones. The band is rivaled only by the also-legendary, also-recently-reunited Gang of Four for endearing homeliness; but then again, Gang of Four still come on like rock stars with their edgy British accents and leather jackets - and well, it seems like right now, every new band coming out wants to be Gang of Four on some level. Who wants to be Mission of Burma? (Note to Regis: Don't pitch this to ABC.)
Answer: Mission of Burma. That's another thing I like about them. Who else but a band who would stand up for a cause like shuffle play could perform a paean to a punctuation mark ("Period") with all the Passion-of-the-Bono intensity a band like the Simple Minds or Big Country would normally reserve for their latest anthem to Nelson Mandela? And who else could come up with an expansive neo-proto-indie-punk-whatever tribute to the premier diva of disco and still, through the power of pun, make it topical and relevant to, like, the War on Terror at the same time, and not sound completely foolish in the process? But Mission of Burma do exactly that with "Donna Sumeria" which finds Peter Prescott loving to love his high-hat baby, along with a super-clever harmonic vocal breakdown directly and specifically alluding to "I Feel Love". But the song is anything but disco, and as ecstatic as it may seem, it's damaged by unrepentant sonic violence.
It's true that when you play this CD in the listed track order, it loses something. It's missing the kind of narrative arc from which many albums derive their wholeness. But when you play it on shuffle, every song sounds like a single, and none of them warrant skipping. "Good, Not Great" is a seething bit of garage punk. "1001 Pleasant Dreams" comes on like a cover of an obscure skinny-tie-era power pop diamond. Songs like "Man In Decline" and "The Mute Speaks" emit layers of transcendental noise, and the hilarious "Nancy Reagan's Head" (whose lyrics could have been stolen from some weird conspiracy theory-obsessed blogger) devolves momentarily into an amplified void from which a gothic choir (and the second verse) emerge.
In this sense, Mission of Burma have created what may be the very first post-album album (or at least the first really good post-album album). A collection of 14 songs that somehow belong together but lose nothing in the translation from CD to iPod playlist. When the nuclear bombs fall and obliterate the human race, there will still be cockroaches. And when CDs (and thus, the album form itself) inevitably (however sadly) go the way of vinyl (still with us, but diminished), there will still be Mission of Burma and The Obliterati. I think I could be okay with that.
- - - - -
BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"The Obliterati" by Mission of Burma
Matador Records
Released 5/23/06
Produced by Mission of Burma
52 min.
SONGS (in no particular order): Spider's Web - Period - Birthday - Is This Where? - Man In Decline - Let Yourself Go - The Mute Speaks Out - Good, Not Great - 2wice - Donna Sumeria - 1001 Pleasant Dreams - Careening With Conviction - Nancy Reagan's Head - 13
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.