Call Me Malcolm- Echoes And Ghosts review

England’s Call Me Malcolm is the newest band to join Bad Time Records, and their third full studio album, “Echoes and Ghosts” picks up where their first two left off, but kicks everything up a few notches.

Somehow, Call Me Malcolm had completely slipped under my radar before this release. Their most recent album came out in 2020, and I was just now rejuvenating my love of music at the end of that year, and for some reason, I never encountered their music in my new music journey. As soon as I heard this album though, I immediately went back and listened to their discography. They are an absolutely brilliant ska punk band, with a powerful sound that sets them apart from their peers and meaningful and personal emotional lyrics that bring you in. If I had to find another band to compare their style to, it might be closest to Kill Lincoln.

While I immediately fell in love with their back catalog, this album really steps it up even further. Call Me Malcolm has a way of writing music where every piece is important and powerful. The aggressive pacing, everything about it feels like a heavy punk rock, the vocals are consistently clean and clear, the personal, emotional lyrics dealing with mental health and recovery, but also continued struggle is relatable and never lost in the music. However, they manage that without quieting the music. There are ska guitar riffs and danceable portions throughout the album, but it never feels like its slapped in or overbearing. The horns accent every song, and sometimes the lead a melody or a breakdown, and it never feels like they are stealing the show. In fact, if there is one thing stealing the show, it’s the drums. Oh, my, fuck these drums go so damn hard. I don’t think there is a ska album in existence where the drums pulled my attention this hard and kept blasting me forward throughout an entire album.

So far, they have three pre-release singles. The first was “one cure to the head, two to the chest”, and if you weren’t familiar with Call Me Malcolm, this is as good of an introduction as any. If captures the powerful lyrics, the aggressive syncopated rhythms, and is a great music video capturing the band performing in sterile white rooms like a sanitorium while the camera repeatedly shows the smashing of a large bottle of pills in slow motion and in reverse, signifying the mental health topics covered in the song. The second video was for “dead men take no pills”, a video featuring muppets organizing a prison break, which is a little more catchy while still dealing with the mental health journey and recovery and setbacks. I’ll discuss the final single below.

The actual album begins with “Ready, Fire, Aim”, introing with static clearing and a repeated distorted guitar rhythm that eventually carry through the track, broken up and punctuated by punctuated short blasts paired with drums before horns come in to carry a rhythm, into the lyrics “It’s 1998 and Im passed out again”. The song addresses therapy and breaking back down, progress and collapse, recovery and a fear of inevitably crashing back down- every time you feel better, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but while I focus on the lyrics, I get sucked into the rest of the song. The guitars sucking my in with their distortion, the drums, the horns in the breakdown.

I really don’t know what to highlight on this album. Every single song could be a single. There definitely isn’t filler. The tension building, the aggression, the fills and the breakdowns are all flawless. The production is masterful. I’ve listened to this album, front to back 50 times or more, and I’m never bored- I’m never not engaged. It’s 100% a workout album, if you put this on at the gym, your heart rate is not dropping.

If I had to pick a single, favorite song, it would probably be “Dahlia”. It’s syncopated rhythm and vocal melody just takes me to the next level. And as it builds me up through the song it hits an instrumental breakdown for the last half that keeps building tension until the very end when it resolves and the entire time I am waiting to feel what’s next. I just feel like it’s constantly engaging and I can’t imagine a person in the crowd who’s not in the pit as the song keeps building.

The problem with setting “Dahlia” as my favorite is that it flows directly into “the snake eats it’s own heartache”, which, lyrically is my favorite song, and vocally, the song that most begs for some crowd participation. This song also features the “Echoes and ghosts” lyric that gave the album its name.

But while I praise other songs for their instrumental portions, it would be a crime to not mention the instrumental portion of the third pre-release single “we shall meet in the place where there is no darkness”. After the bridge in this song there is a spoken sample about the freedom to speak the truth, as the sample comes to a close there is a speed drum fill, followed by slowly building guitars, then, as the sample ends the horns drive a rhythm, the drums pick up with kicks, then an unforgettable guitar comes in faster and faster, the drums drive us to the edge of a cliff. If everyone was dancing during “Dahlia” (how could they not be) then people are getting injured. Veterans of the scene are picking people off the floor. In my head, atoms are colliding, all of society has built to this moment, and it might be the worst possible outcome, but nothing can stop it. All things that are inevitable happen as the guitars and drums build to this very moment, yet somehow the song resolves and there is still one last track.

“154 BPM” and it does not disappoint. The song begins with what sounds like a single heartbeat heard through an ultrasound. Lyrically mirroring the start of the album, now “2022 I’m passed out again”, and we’ve come full circle. Like therapy and rehab that make you better, and imbalances and society often make progress cyclical, we’ve experienced the gamut, and we are back at the start. The song begins slow but the song title gives away the truth. The melody in this song is extremely catchy, the syncopation, the punch, are always grabbing the listener. It feels like the last song, as it feels like its bringing the album to a conclusion. At times it feels like a thesis. But after the thesis statement is delivered the horns come in to bring their melody. The drums, at what I can only assume are 154 BPM drive forward, once again approaching the cliff. Another horn joins in with a lead melody, this one to tie everything together. It’s a little bit higher to force your attention. Everything driving together, in rapid, beautiful, harmony. Then, with no hint of resolution, while still building, static. It’s over. It feels like a metaphor. Everything taken away at once. Abrupt. Static to end it all. No resolution. It feels like pain. Musically, it feels like perfection.

GimpLeg

Source: punxinsolidarity.wordpress.com