"....I just don't care what happens next:
Looks like freedom but it feels like death;
It's something inbetween, I guess...."
Leonard Cohen "Closing Time"

Actually, I'm starting with an inaccuracy of my own there - this CD looks like it's a death, but it sounds much more like the starting of freedom. The mighty Mob rise from the (fortunately only metaphorical) ashes of their former incarnation as Boomhauer to release this "statement of play at time of writing". And jolly good it is, too....

We start off "In my father's mouth" (a Radio 4 mid-morning show is surely just waiting to nab that title) which is all about the difficulties faced by those of a serially-suicidal disposition. In an unusually low-key vocal that captures a vulnerability generally absent from his live performances, Chris Watkins' protagonist tells about how he has topped himself in his past lives, and how, oh no, looks like the time's getting ripe for it to happen again. Were it not for the rich, serpentine melody line of this song, and it's full-force, power-chord-ing, stop-start backing, I was almost back in the territory of Suicidal Syd, from VIz magazine. But it's such a powerful and bizarre song that you might be tempted to call it an allegory, if you could only locate it's moral.

"Disco-boy" is another familiar sounding track to those who've seen the Mob live in recent years. A jive-room instrumental clears the way for verses with some swooping, dive-bombing guitars, sounding for all the world like the Surfaris playing their favourite bits from "The Bends". In and out of it's two worlds it skips, one minute gaily chucking it's beach ball to and fro, the next strafing the beach in a Stuka. Most perplexing. As is "The Angel Tree", a slide guitar strewn shuffle that alternates between sounding like the steeliest, newest, nastiest rock, and like it just crawled back out of it's acid from Woodstock.

I do not find Mob Curious to be a derivative band, but until you've listened to them it is a lot easier to try and convey their music to you through comparisons. My typed singing is terrible, and my written air guitar just looks stupid. But I digress. Unlike many bands around, their debts are only in spirit - these are genuinely original-sounding pieces. Theirs is a sound and a spirit which thrives upon nothing so much as diversity, and their inspired cross-breeding of influences leads to an impressive if thoroughly eclectic set of songs. This modus operandi is apparent again on "beneath the pavement", where a '60's-style Spy theme, replete with Flutes and background groaning is interrupted by Noel Cass' excellent atonal guitarry squawks. The "60's Spy motif" comes back again on "motion sickness", this time with Love-style time changes, and psychedelic harmonies over a thorughly seedy riff. Grand.

This is a thorughly impressive CD, and more importantly, a very representative one - the band I'm listening to sound every bit like the one I've seen so many times down at the Yorkie. And still sound great. A well played set of songs with subtle additions to broaden the sound palette (Horns on "Disco-boy", the aforementioned flute on "Motion Sickness", and a very tasteful explosion in the middle of "Love the bomb"). Whilst it is Chris's lyrics and Noel's inventive guitar playing which will get most of the plaudits, much also ought to be made of the rhythm section of Nick Camm (drums, backing vocals) and Steve Talbutt (bass) who hold the whole thing together with aplomb and reliably taught good judgement. Nick's singing, particularly on the closing "Starlings" adds a great deal to the fullness of the band's sound. "Starlings" is a great closer - suitably creepy, yet full of the many quirks and inventive nature which characterises this CD as a whole. I am assured that this CD is now in a relatively elderly state, and is about to be superceded by something even newer and shinier. On the basis of this one, you ought to be booking your copy right now.

Paddy Garrigan