Its probably safe to say that Fugazi have emitted their last wail of feedback. The highly influential art-punk group wowed people who liked a little brain with their noise from the late 1980s to their hiatus in 2002 – and since then we haven’t heard a peep. They have been missed – and even though rumours abound of the group playing together in private, there has been no indication of a resurrection of a public version.
But wait: they’re back. Well, half of the group are, anyway: namely the rhythm section of drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally, who have formed The Messthetics with the Washington DC guitarist Anthony Pirog. The announcement at the start of 2018 that Lally and Canty were back together making music sent many into a frenzy. Some of us have been in denial that we have seen the end of Fugazi ever since their last album, The Argument was followed by a long, sad silence. Like a bereft owner searching for a lost cat, we have visited countless fan sites and blogs, searching for a nugget of information, hoping in vain for a sign that they may return.
So this is the closest thing we have to a reunion. And it is long-awaited and very welcome. But it must be said, it would be a mistake to call this album merely “half of Fugazi plus a guitarist”. Because that would be deeply unfair on Pirog, who is a central member of the band – apparently Canty joined up with him the old fashioned way: as a fan. They got talking, then playing and the end result is this.
Canty and Lally say they fell right back into step with each other, despite not playing together for over a decade. And that familiar tight, locked-in rhythm that was an essential yet much under-rated part of the Fugazi jigsaw is still there, from the opening bars of ‘Mythomania’, which begins the album. In fact the beginning is so Fugazi-like that you half expect Ian MacKaye to bark something clever over the top. He doesn’t. Instead Pirog sneaks in with a wall of feedback, before tentatively filling the rhythmical holes with stabs of guitar.
Pirog’s playing fits Canty and Lally’s backbeat like the proverbial glove. He is billed as a jazz/experimental guitarist, but just as labelling Fugazi “punk” was way too vague and sold them short, the pigeonhole does Pirog no favours at all.
One thing is for sure, however: he can certainly play. There is a bit of Dick Dale in his phrasing on ‘Serpent Tongue’, for instance. And there is more than a touch of Angus Young in the ‘Quantum Path’. Meanwhile, the subtle, languid tones on ‘The Inner Ocean’ could grace any jazz bar – if the guitar wasn’t so overdriven. And on ‘Crowds and Power’, aided by an angular rhythm from Canty which morphs from a beat which could have featured on In on the Killtaker (the greatest Fugazi album, in my opinion) into a heavy-metal gallop and back again, Pirog unleashes his inner noise-rock demons.
The album was recorded with minimal overdubs or studio trickery and it shows. It sounds fresh and immediate: three musicians having a blast, enjoying each other’s company and the communal noise they are making.
Sure, this album will get attention because two-thirds of the band played in Fugazi. Heck, pretty much every paragraph of this review mentions their name. But that should not be the reason you listen to it. The reason to buy it is because it is an excellent debut album, not because it may herald the re-incarnation of a band that hasn’t made a sound in over 16 years.
