Mission Of Burma - The Sound The Speed The Light

And MISSION OF BURMA is BACK with a new record that came out last October! And I wasn't even going to buy it, but the LP was only $13 the day I went to Newbury to buy "Yank Crime" and "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain" on LP, so how could I resist??

Let's be honest, you can't help but be skeptical when a band gets back together after their guitarist quit due to his broken ears. I mean, how can he hear those songs? How can he tell silly new jokes that he HASN'T heard since becoming not-deaf? I don't know.

Wow!

but hey, Really, Like I said,

slightly

skept-
ical.

But then, after a romp to the Boston Public Li(Bill)berry with Evan "Magic Toes" Allen, I saw they had "The Obliterati" which was the second MOB reunion LP. I checked it out, threw it on and was like "Wow, other than the album being over an hour long, this is solid". So here, we have this new thing.

I actually knew about this thing BEFORE it came out. When I saw Shellac for the first time last year, someone asked Bob when the new MOB album would be out and he said "October, and it has a TERRIBLE title, "The Sound The Speed The Light". There you have it! Bob Weston hates doing tape loops, the bastard! And when I saw Burma on Mission of Burma Day (Oct. 4th, my mother's birthday) in Cambridge at MIT fo' free, they played this entire album, but in reverse running order (WTF LOLLZZZZ). So there, I gave a root canal to Mayor Menininoiono.

But that's beside the point. - - - ). That ")" was also beside a point. ZING!

So the songs?

Most are good!

I mean, here, Roger writes the bulk (6), Peter (3) and Clint (2, co-writing a 3rd with Holly Anderson, the one that also wrote a jam on "ONoffON" and wrote with Conley on some other stuff). And what do we get? Well, Peter's songs are all like "bloom-da-bomal-crash" and double tracked hollered vocals like a demented football coach. Roger sounds like a "dumb football player" according to Mark Prindle, and Clint sounds like a woman (hence, cheerleader or sportscaster), and there's your 2010 CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS. But really, Clint doesn't sound like a woman, ok? He sounds totally normal. And his songs are great!

But so where were we? Ah yes. I mean, I listened to this album, but I "got" it on a Saturday morning in my dorm. It was one of the last ones and it was raining out. Prep school was going on so I had no real reason to want to get up and actually get out and do anything, so I woke up, but this album on, and then just sort of lied down, half-awake, half asleep and at some point, "After the Rain" came on and damned if I just didn't get up and get all frantic, trying to find out what song it was. I listened to it and the one after ("SSL 83"), and then listened to all of side 1 again, this time, fully awake and involved and I don't know why but this Burma got to me somehow. Of course I flipped to side 2 and finished it and over time my opinions have changed on some tracks, but this is the most consistent and strongest Burma LP since "Vs". They finally reigned it in by having a digestible 12 jams instead of 15 or 16 and Bob's tape loops are actually doing more than repeating vocals - they sound like an INSTRUMENT, DAMMIT!

Granted, some songs like "So Fuck It" are silly - I mean, is there any reason Roger Miller needs to be singing "I often wonder what I'm really worth/and I won't take shit from you or anyone else/so fuck it". I mean, who's giving Roger such guff? He's a self-employed composer or something and plays guitar in Burma and he's in his 50s and stuff. Guess that old rebellious spirit never dies, does it...

But on the whole, this album is full of fully written and wonderful sounding songs that are now part of Burma's show. So if you plan to see them live like I did 2/3 weeks ago, get to know this. Burma's back and it's time you took notice if you didn't already.

OVERALL RATING - Mark Ibold's smile.
KEY TRACKS - "After the Rain", "SSL 83", "Comes Undone" and maybe "Feed".