Music review: “Safety Fifth” by Mucca Pazza

In which Bill tries to do a proper review of Mucca Pazza's new album but as usual talks more about the process than about the subject

Posted by Bill on June 12, 2012 at 10:28 am

I’ve been sitting around Bill’s Head World Headquarters for years now waiting in vain for people to start sending me free products and/or cash to get me to promote their wares, like on all those mommy blogs and gadget blogs. It’s a flawed plan, I realize, for many reasons, and I was just about ready to give up and start looking for a better way to put away money for retirement. But then last week the gravy train arrived: possibly because I am a widely-read and influential music critic, but more likely because I said a few nice things about Mucca Pazza and posted a video from their new album, Safety Fifth, I got an e-mail from the band’s publicity people at rock paper scissors, inviting me to download and review the album. That’s right: free stuff!

Once I got over the excitement of being an industry insider and having access to the album before its release, though, I realized I had a problem: I felt a responsibility to write something more insightful than “I like it” (cf. my recent “review” of The Turpentine Ray, which I feel slightly ashamed and apologetic about). Why? I’m not sure.* Certainly the insight bar is pretty low here at Bill’s Head, and I am not actually a widely-read and influential music critic. Or a music critic at all. I like music, sure, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking (much less writing) critically about it. Still, there I was, feeling like I had an assignment to complete, even though friends reminded me that I did not, in fact, have to write anything at all if I didn’t want to.

As I downloaded Safety Fifth, I thought about why, as much as I enjoyed the one and a half Mucca Pazza performances I have seen, I had not gotten around to listening to or buying either of their two previous albums. Partly this had been due to laziness and forgetfulness, but partly it was because I worried that the excitement (and novelty) of the live performances would not carry over to the recording.

Mucca Pazza describe themselves as a “circus-punk marching band,” and the costumes they’re wearing in the picture above are not just something they put on for their portrait. They have brass, woodwinds, and percussion, like your standard marching band. But they also have a string and accordion section (with amplifiers and helmet-mounted speakers) and manic cheerleaders. Their shows feature marching, choreography, audience interaction, and pom-pons made of caution tape.† Without the theatrics, could the music stand on its own?

This is a challenge for a band like Mucca Pazza, but it’s also a challenge for me: having seen them live, is it possible to assess the album qua album, without being influenced by associations with the live act? Let’s find out.

The album opens with “Boss Taurus.” I assume they must have played it when I saw them perform last month, but I don’t remember it specifically from that show. Instead I knew it from the video that they released for it. The song puts a smile on my face every time I hear it, because I can picture the video in my head, and the video in turn conveys the personality that makes the band so much fun. Even without benefit of the video, the song captures the spirit of the band: it’s energetic and playful,‡ and gives each instrument section a turn in the spotlight (except the cheerleaders, who sadly aren’t included on this album§). The interplay between instruments is a recurring theme in the music on the album, sometimes subtle, sometimes conversational, and sometimes competitive.

I was expecting the album to consist primarily of songs in the frenetic vein of “Boss Taurus,” since that’s the style that seems most likely to convey the excitement of a live Mucca Pazza performance. The surf-rock “Sexy Bull” and “Maui Waui 5-0? (a nod to the music of “Hawaii Five-O” and other television shows of its period and style) certainly deliver on this, and are the attention-grabbing standouts on the album, at least on first listen.

To my surprise, though, the album is dominated by less-explosive (not to say less energetic) pieces, displaying a wide range of styles (sometimes mixed within the same song), including a fanfare, marches, two tangos, and more.

I’ve read that many of the musicians in Mucca Pazza are or were active in the Chicago theatre music scene, and that shows: several of the songs seem to be telling a story (“Last Days”) or play like riffs on incidental music from a play or film noir (“Monster Tango”). The press kit describes “Hang ’Em Where I Can See ’Em” as reflecting “a fascination with the work of Ennio Morricone,” and I can see a tense scene from a spaghetti western playing out in my head every time I listen to it. “Touch the Police” makes me think of the “circus” part of the band’s self-description: it conjures images of clowns on unicycles (or maybe just Muccas scurrying through the audience while playing).

I admit that the first few times I listened to Safety Fifth I found myself thinking of some of these songs as filler between the strategically-placed, crank-up-the-volume “Boss Taurus” (beginning), “Sexy Bull” (middle), and “Maui Waui 5-0? (second to last). But I was missing the point: these songs are precisely what prove that the band is more than just its live show. Mucca Pazza isn’t just a novelty act with a few crowd-pleasing numbers. The members of the band are clearly talented and curious musicians, determined to see how many musical styles they can adapt to their marching-band format, and they’re having a lot of fun doing it.

So, what about the original question: can I assess the album as a standalone work? Sort of. And what about the question implied by the original question: will you like this album if you haven’t already fallen in love with Mucca Pazza? My considered opinion: some of you will and some of you won’t.

Because it has taken me an inordinately long time to get this post written, it’s turned into a review of a just-released (i.e., today) rather than a soon-to-be-released album. That’s good news for you, because you can immediately go listen to or buy Safety Fifth and form your own opinion, making everything that I have just bloviated about largely irrelevant.

A reminder for those of you in the Washington, DC area: Mucca Pazza is playing a free show this Saturday at the Tour de Fat. They’re also appearing Friday night at the 9:30 Club with Balkan Beat Box, about whom I know absolutely nothing. Sadly I don’t think I will make it to either show due to a scheduling conflict with, ironically, a bicycle ride.