This thread title is so tantalizing, isn't it? Unfortunately, it's actually about the band Wussy, who TJ loves. Has anyone heard this? For those in the dark, it's the new band of Chuck Cleaver from Ass Ponys. Here's the review from today's Washington Post:
We could row against the undertow," muses guitarist Lisa Walker during the lurching second stanza of "Muscle Cars," only to think better of it as she plunges headlong into the song's chorus. There, surrendering to the rhythm, she submits, "It's okay . . . pull me under . . . all the way."
Walker's impulse could double as Wussy's artistic statement of purpose: Few bands since the Velvet Underground-steeped heyday of the Feelies, Yo La Tengo and R.E.M. have abandoned themselves so completely to the ebbing, flowing currents of keening, droning guitars.
The Cincinnati quartet's third full-length album might be more subdued than their previous efforts, but much like the Velvets' crepuscular third LP, what it sacrifices in noisy grandeur it makes up for in sumptuous melodies and grooves. The album-opening "Little Paper Birds" might even be a tremulous, lo-fi homage to "Pale Blue Eyes."
The ominously titled "Gone Missing" and "This Will Not End Well," meanwhile, are re-imagined folk-rock. As with everything on the record, both convey more than a hint of dissonance, not just in their pregnant chord changes but also in the staggered vocals of Walker and fellow bandleader Chuck Cleaver. Bassist Mark Messerly adds sublime pop touches on bells, various keyboards and stringed things on "Magic Words" and "Maglite."
Lyrically, Cleaver's outsider point of view on the likes of "Dreadful Sorry" and "Happiness Bleeds" tends to predominate, but Walker's outpourings of desperation and desire are no less captivating -- as seductive, in their way, as the irresistible undertow of the music.
It's out May 12th. You can find a couple of the new songs here:
http://www.songsillinois.net/2009/04/wu ... s-april-9/
