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Mexico CityBlack Comedy Reverberation For any old school rock dude who can't help but look suspiciously at a band like Wolfmother and wonder how it is that prog-rock became cool again, here's an antidote. Brisbane fourpiece Mexico City hang out on the intersection where three genuinely seminal artists might have met in the late 60s: they channel Neil Young and Crazy Horse's epic garage workouts (Carolina, Babe Hold The Phone, I Stepped Outside); The Stones' mournful ramshackle 'Exile On Mainstreet' balladeering (When You Say You Love Me, By Yer Side, Canefield Blues); and Dylan and the Band's rollicking countrified blues (Ain't No Lie, Like A Dream ). If you appreciate any of those legends, here's a band that bravely, confidently, and completely unselfconsciously takes you back to their heydays. The strength of Mexico City, though, lies less in the way it wears its influences on its sleeve, and more in what it does with them. 'Black Comedy' is a compelling record in its own right. The ballads, dark, beautiful, and aching, will resonate with anyone who ever loved, or fought, or broke up; in the rock tracks, meanwhile, you can hear the guts that got busted drawing out the blood and the sweat. The only contemporary reference on this record is that vocalist Adam Toole's world-weary tonsils sound eerily like the Kings Of Leon's Caleb Followill. Everything else is classic, baby, and for all the right reasons.  |
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