mclusky - To Hell With Good Intentions

It had escaped my attention that the might mclusky, Welsh lords of smartassery and noise rock, had reunited and released a new record in 2025. That is, until the blogging Voltron known as Jokonky mentioned it in their Comeback Special 2025 post a few weeks back. So I dutifully ran out to my local purveyor of new CD's and vinyl, picked up the specially-order K-pop Christmas gift for the missus, and plunked down an additional $14.99 plus tax for the pleasure of mclusky's fourth full-length, "The World Is Still Here And So Are We". If I'd been more patient, I could have waited for Bandcamp Friday and made sure the band/label got all the dollars. But it's a mitzvah to kick your local retailer some bread, especially when they track down a limited edition version of a CD you've already bought your wife twice. You gotta get her that mini figure.

Ahem.

"The World..." is still growing on me, but it was inspiration to then dump my entire mclusky archive onto my phone and get my dick pounded into mush by noise rock over the next week plus. I claim no mega fandom, only a great respect for a band I'm pretty salty I never got to see live. And why not share an out-of-print EP for my friends' listening pleasure? Surely, they also enjoy the occasional genital destruction via rock tuneage. So here's the 4-song "To Hell With Good Intentions", the title track of which appeared on the all-timer "mclusky Does Dallas". The other three songs also appear on the 3-disc limited version of "mcluskyism". I invite you, should you have a spare copy, to send it my way as a Christmas gift, Kwanzaa present, Tet treat, or any other excuse to send me music in the post.

Anyway, go snag that new mclusky record, fam. It's well worth the price of admission.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Los Campesinos! ‎– The International Tweexcore Underground

Los Campesinos! was probably one of the first bands I heard of exclusively from the Internet.

I was a few years into suburban married life, and I desperately missed going out regularly to see shows and hang out, in addition to dealing with as-yet-to-be-diagnosed mental illness. I'm sure it was a thrilling combination for my ex-wife. I had no interest in Napster or Limewire, mainly because I never gave a shit about Linkin Park and I owned all the Metallica I ever needed to own. While MRR and Punk Planet still existed, there weren't equivalents for what could still be called "indie rock". So thank the gods for music blogs, because I would have otherwise fallen off completely. Somewhere during that time, one of the indie writers I read on the regular posted an EP from this Welsh group that sounded like a K Records group all hopped up on Mountain Dew. What was not to like? Within a few months, I saw the "Death To Los Campesinos!" video, and it was a lock:

Cute British boys and girls making music? Is that singer wearing a Crass t-shirt (note: it was a Xiu Xiu tee)? Are they getting attacked by memes? I fucking love it! So I went to the website of this UK indie distributor, slapped down $12, and ordered "The International Tweexcore Underground".

So what you get here is a non-LP single in the form of the title track, a Heavenly cover, and a Black Flag cover, none of which I was aware of when I ordered the single. There are some sterling lines in "The International Tweexcore Underground": "Said, 'How're you gonna bring the state down /When you're propping it up?' / With daytime radio / And skimmed milk and soppy bows". Man, that's pretty goddamned subversive. They refer both Amelia Fletcher and Henry Rollins within the song, which lead into the two covers on the EP. This isn't LC!'s finest hour, but this EP stands as an entry point for me and a lot of the rest of the world. It's full of piss and vinegar and sentiment and if it were a Simpsons character, it'd end up on the cover of Non-Threatening Boys.

Within two years, I'd left my married home, and met a girl, who'd take me to see Los Campesinos! on our third date. We've been together since.

Discogs

Click here to download.