Generally speaking, I don't do album reviews. I'm worried that by assigning a grade or a number to a record, I'm passing some kind of judgment on it, and quite frankly, who the Hell am I to say your album is six out of 10 "good" or nine out of 10 "good"? If I rate an album nine out of 10, I don't want to cost a band some sales by perfectionists who only buy albums that get perfect 10 ratings. And maybe my nine is their 10 and they miss out on a new favorite?
What I can do instead of reducing an album solely to a points system is to provide my credentials - I played bass guitar pretty seriously for about 17 years, taking lessons for about 10; and I own 1,000 CDs - and I can tell you what a certain record sounds like and whether or not I think you should buy it.
Run, don't walk, to the Landline Records website and buy Micko and the Mellotronics' debut LP 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon. Links on the album's rundown page will take you to a vinyl ordering page on Rough Trade or a digital ordering page on Micko's Bandcamp. You should get it on vinyl because the vinyl release is beautiful and sharp and it sounds lovely and warm on a turntable, but if that's not in the cards, no harm in adding an album to your Bandcamp collection for 8.99 GBP.
However you buy it, what you get is a collection of 10 smart tracks of bright rock 'n' roll and new wave - part Britpop, part post-punk, part early ska. It's hard to pin down, but at times it seems to pull inspiration from The Stooges, The Strokes, Supergrass and The Specials. It's an energetic romp of rock music that utterly ignores rock star ego, ingenuine celebrity appeal, desensitized "extremeness" and hipster snobbery, some of which seem to have been a feature of rock music since its inception.
Micko Westmoreland, guitarist and lead singer, guides his band like a captain navigating a ship through a storm. He's joined by Jon Klein (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Specimen) on guitar, Vicky Carroll on bass and Nick Mackay on drums. Mackay's drums are energetic and lively, Carroll's bass helps ground the album from start to finish and Westmoreland's and Klein's guitars make a delightful pair. Guest stars include Terry Edwards, Neil Innes and Horace Panter.
It's fun. It's unabashedly, unapologetically, incessantly fun music played by four bandmates with a taste for various subgenres plucked from the '60s through '80s. Where so many groups of the post-punk revival scene locked onto certain aspects of these classic music movements but failed to grasp others (Jet and The Hives come to mind), Micko and the Mellotronics feel right at home. From the four-on-the-floor "Noisy Neighbours," which could find a comfortable home on The Strokes' Room on Fire; to the backbeat-heavy "The Fear," which for my money is heir apparent to The Clash's "Bankrobber," the 37-minute record walks the careful line of avoiding nostalgia while maintaining a continuation of genres long since past.
On the subject of nostalgia, there's a very admirable point to make about the lyrical topics on the album. Thematically, 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon spends much time looking back on specific moments in recent history or at unique characters in its lyrics. "Imelda" is written as a sort of odd love letter by a distant admirer to Imelda Marcos, an extraordinarily and almost comically corrupt First Lady of the Philippines whose heyday ended in the mid-1980s. "Psychedelic Shirt" recalls a time in Micko's first psychedelic shirt, which he bought in his teens, was trampled and ruined by school bullies. Even lead single "The Finger" was inspired by a grumpy sort of barfly Micko used to see at a pub whenever Micko would get off the bus at his usual station.
The thing is, though, there is no nostalgia on this record. Fans of HBO's The Sopranos may remember an episode in which Tony Soprano stands and leaves a poolside conversation. When his friend Paulie asks why he's bored, Tony shrugs and says "It's just that 'Remember When' is the lowest form of conversation." Whether intentional or not, 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon takes this lesson to heart. Each look back has a specific point and a real purpose, and none of them have the purpose of giving us the warm fuzzies about yesteryear. "Imelda" is a meditation on the unbelievable depths of human greed; "Psychedelic Shirt" may not be an anti-bullying anthem but it does offer a teachable moment about letting your antagonists define you or not. Call it meditation or call it therapy - though whether Micko is our therapist or we're his remains uncertain - but its goal seems most obvious in "The Fear," which is about getting rid of the negative connotations we have with the unknown and simultaneously finding a use in fear.
"Feel the fear and flow with it
Feel the fear and go with it
Live each day like it was your last."
Although being written before 2020, it feels especially relevant under COVID lockdown and with political turmoil in the U.S. and the U.K..
Whatever you take from 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon, it's a fantastic record and an excellent way to close out a nightmarish year. It's definitely one of my favorites and you can't listen to it without finding something - or, more likely, a lot of things - to love. For much more information on the record and the formation of The Mellotronics, please read my exclusive interview with Micko Westmoreland and Jon Klein for my music journalism website soundcoma by clicking here after you pick up the album.
