Mclusky
Oxford Art Factory
Sydney, Australia
January 12, 2020
Mclusky…rings a bell, huh? I remembered that they were one of the better bands in the 1990s that emerged out of the delicious swamp that was influenced by the better emissions out of Amphetamine Reptile records.
Grimy guitars and a fuzzed-out bass met a fierce and obnoxious attitude that culminated with an aggressive sing-screaming that resided in the darker realms of independent rock. Summa summarum: A welcome and merciless distraction from what followed in the wake of Nirvana’s success.
Needless to say that I was a wee bit worried about seeing them incarnate again in 2020 and prepared myself for disappointment, which was not warranted as with their original frontman Andrew ‘Falco’ Falkous, drummer Jack Egglestone and Damian Sayell the band was in formidable form and managed to blow away any doubts once they entered the stage in front of a packed audience inside the confines of one of the better venues in Sydney, i.e. the Oxford Art Factory.
Tonight the wheel was not necessarily reinvented yet what was proffered was a guitar-heavy, tight, catchy yet raw assault with Falco’s charismatic trademark gruff vocal delivery being the cherry on top.
Having been exposed to Mclusky for the first time, my better half described it as a dissonant psychotic and meaner version of the The Hives, which describes the performance quite accurately.
‘No New Wave No Fun’ carries on a similar trend, a filtered guitar motif preceding a short, catchy tune, although the sound here is even rawer, its driving resonance taking inspiration from The Hives, but adding its own heavy psyche and mean soul to it.
In essence, Mclusky in 2020 is still an exquisite melange of guitar-driven hard-edged punk and the finer moments of noise rock, infused with their idiosyncratic misanthropy.
