Mclusky
Undress For Success

Quirky voices, off-kilter guitars, oh so cleverly referenced lyrics – all sound familiar? Right. Err, wrong, see it’s not Mark E Smith and the latest Fall line-up, although I’m sure this Welsh trio won’t have any complaints being likened to such an incongruous institution as the Mancunian anti-hierarchy-_ah_.

Although ‘Undress For Success’ contains the odd lyrical nugget courtesy of Andy Falkous’ pen (“When I lost my teeth I gained a fire”) it doesn’t grab your balls and dissect those pubic hairs one by one in the same way ‘Rice Is Nice’ or ‘To Hell With Good Intentions’ did, and ultimately Mclusky pay the penalty here for having set such high standards in the past.

Still, we’ll give them full marks for having the best song titles I’ve seen inscribed on an inlay card all year (‘Join The Mevolution’ and ‘The Salt Water Solution’) but unfortunately the lack of a memorable tune on either of them renders that score meaningless so overall it’s got to be a middle-of-the-road, could be worse BUT could do better…