In Stores Now: Travels with Myself and Another by Future of the Left

Detail of a stereograph titled "Insurgents from Sparta", c. 1897

I find it hard to make an argument against loud, aggressive music without sounding like a total pantywaist. But, for whatever reason, I cannot stomach most music with vocalists who do more yelling than singing. This means that I have trouble with the barking of hardcore punk, the Cookie-Monster growls of Euro metal, and the outright screaming of emo/screamo/crabcore. I know that angry music is supposed to make you want to hit something or at least focus the hit-something impulses you already have, but I invariably just want to hit the dude singing. Well, not quite invariably - there are a few bands that appeal to me in their rage, and Mclusky was one of those bands.

The Welsh indie band did some of the best, funniest, and most profane post-hardcore pop I ever heard. I wasn't immediately sold on them the first time I heard them - like many people, my first Mclusky experience was seeing a Flash animation on the Web of kittens performing "Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues". I was, however, completely sold on them the first time I heard their perfect aggro-pop single, "To Hell with Good Intentions". The fact that they gave their songs names like "Without MSG I Am Nothing" and "The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire" meant that no amount of screaming would ever make me fall out of love with Mclusky.

And then Mclusky broke up. Two of the guys, Falkous and Egglestone, went on to form Future of the Left and, in spite of the arguments made to the contrary by fans, it is really just a natural extension of Mclusky's agenda and artistic direction. Travels with Myself and Another is Future of the Left's second album, and it's as catchy, funny, and (yes) angry as anything these guys have made since Mclusky Do Dallas. To me, the album divides pretty clearly into three sections: i) catchy songs, ii) angry songs, and iii) funny songs.

Travels with Myself and Another begins with three hook-filled natural singles, the teeth-gnashing "Arming Eritrea" and "Chin Music", the driving death-march of "The Hope that House Built", and the keyboard-driven "Throwing Bricks at Trains". The singles are followed by the four songs I think of as the angry songs - the invective in "I Am Civil Service" and "Land of My Formers" is so real-sounding that I almost forget that Future of the Left has a sense of humor. But the album's last four songs, beginning with the Lifter-Puller-esque "Stand By Your Manatee", bring back the band's dark humor with lines like "Nothing in the world could take her common shame away/cos Emma's mom and dad use plastic forks!"

For my money, though, it's hard to beat a song that starts with the line, "Slight bowel movements preceded the bloodless coup." "Throwing Bricks at Trains" is, quite simply, a song about two guys that like to go up on an overpass and throw bricks at moving trains. It's more than that, though - it's about a young person's first exposure to outright sociopathy. Our narrator feels responsible for bringing together the two idiots that, when together, reach some critical mass of indifference that allows them to lob bricks into trains full of people. Okay, now it's starting to sound like I have to over-intellectualize loud music to enjoy it - I'd say that there's probably some truth in that, but I don't think any justifying is needed when it comes to music as fun and irreverent as Future of the Left.

"Throwing Bricks at Trains" by Future of the Left