McCloud - something and chartres (self-released)

More than ever, the a place music industry is where marketing and the hard sell, the pushing of style rather than substance, and music designed for a quick buck rather than quality and longevity are the overriding factors. Having a good song to push is probably about the eighteenth box to be ticked on any record label marketing meeting minutes. This is why I love the self-deprecating nature of McCloud, whose third album in as many decades is “sure to delight 40-something-year-old dads who still won’t wear Crocs in public.”

Such an attitude can only be derived from the fact that they take none of that stuff seriously and understand that the joy of making music comes from merely that, making music and doing so with your oldest friends. Everything about the band is something that I, and people like me who have been around the block a few more times than they care to mention, can relate to.

They also reference Superchunk as an influence! ‘Nuff said.

Taken from the album/ep (I never know where one definition starts and the other ends) look behind you, “something and chartres” is one of those mid-paced, poised, and poignant slices of indie that served the nineties alternative scene so brilliantly, well in the US at least – on my side of the water it was all Brit-pop pap and mindless rave dross. No, thank you!

Built of coiled and spiraling razor wire riffs and raw rhythms, understated verses and choruses that explode, but in a controlled and cool manner, unfussy but perfectly placed beats and basslines and vocals with just the right world-weary and reflective edge, it’s a killer song.

If you told me that you saw this band opening for the likes of Buffalo Tom at House of Blues Boston in ’95, I would believe you implicitly.

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