Artist: Micko Westmoreland
Album: Yours Etc Abc
Release Date: August 14, 2015
Listen Now: Spotify / Soundcloud
Review: The most public end product of Trent Reznor’s 1990s
label Nothing Records was either Marilyn Manson as a public figure or
celebrity, or maybe the recruitment of Atticus Ross (of Nothing’s
industrial-rock group 12 Rounds) into Reznor’s own efforts – including scoring
the last three David Fincher films and collaborating for Nine Inch Nails and
their other band How to Destroy Angels.
However, Nothing also released the oft-overlooked drum-and-bass debut by
Micko Westmoreland, One Pound Note,
under the alias The Bowling Green. In
the 17 years since, Westmoreland has released two more solo albums and co-starred
as rocker Jack Fairy in Velvet Goldmine. His new LP, Yours Etc Abc, is a classic rock endeavor with one foot planted in
the mod sound of the 1960s and the other in the energy of the early ‘80s.
For Yours Etc Abc, Westmoreland gathered
personnel like trumpeter/saxophonist Terry Edwards (Nick Cave, Tom Waits) and keyboardist
Mick Gallagher (Ian Dury and the Blockheads, The Animals), bringing them into
the studio along with a menagerie of guitars to provide the big rock sound of
the “British Invasion” of the pre-Woodstock years. In Westmoreland’s own words, “[Yours] took flight with a ‘60s guitar
ensemble. My quartet consisted of a
Fender, Gretsch, Rickenbacker and an old Gibson acoustic. They complement each other superbly, neither
overshadowing the other.”
Listening to any one track on the album makes
Westmoreland’s intentions clear. The
production on songs like the opener “Freaksville” could convince the listener
that Yours Etc Abc was recorded
alongside “How Can It Be?” by The Birds or early The Who cuts like “I Need You.” The same goes for nearly every track on the
album – Micko only ditches the mod mood rarely, when he leans more towards the
early ‘80s sound that permeates the album on several tracks.
Despite the polarizing combination of the
characters “1980s,” you can rest easy knowing this isn’t a half-assed attempt
to emulate Cutting Crew or Simple Minds.
Micko opts for the serious, charged-up edge of The Cure’s “In Between
Days” and The Smith’s “Hand in Glove.”
Whether it’s on Yours Etc’s dynamic
closer, “Brighter Shade,” which is a dreamier instrumental awash in synths and
wailing guitar; or on “The Vampire Song,” whose reverb and more present
electronic swells lean more towards a distinct 1980s feel, Westmoreland brings
us into his youth. It’s easy to picture
a kid laying on the living room floor and listening to his first vinyl 30 years
ago, huge headphones in, eyeing the liner notes, all the while being reminded
of his parents’ 33’s that he’d grown up on.
Lyrically and thematically, the album is also more
acute in its existentialist concerns than the general individualism of the
1960s. Micko frets over his subject on
“What Do You Bring to the Party,” with frustrated lines like “You’re drunk on
attention, down on your knees / Desperate for attention from a bottomless
pit.” Likewise, “A Place for Everything”
addresses the stress of trying to accommodate someone with obsessive-compulsive
disorder. Micko sings “If you lost
control of the moment, what would that cost? / Abandon false security, see the
value in that loss.” It’s easy to see “A
Place for Everything” as the anti-“Lovesong.”
Admittedly, the two classic subgenres of rock that
Yours Etc Abc attacks aren’t
everyone’s cup of tea. Those only looking
for the drunken ‘60s revivalism of The Brian Jonestown Massacre or the smoky,
throwback roadhouse blues-rock of Jack White or Jon Spencer won’t find much to slake
their thirst. But any music fan looking
to revisit either point of their lives that enjoyed mid-‘60s English mod or
moody ‘80s rock (or especially a crossroads of both) could do much worse than
this record.
