mclusky return after 20 years with new album!

Cardiff hardcore nutters mclusky make their long awaited return after 20 years. Anyone who’s not heard the brilliant mcluskey Does Dallas I suggest you search it out. If their last three albums are anything to go by this one is gonna fuck you up. Read on…

mclusky return their jagged riffs and unrelenting energy on their first new album in 20 years: the world is still here and so are we (may 9, ipecac recordings).

They will also be playing selected live dates in support of the release and have more to announce soon. Speaking of announcements, stay tuned for a new single on the horizon on 9th April.

mclusky are a band who were a band, weren’t a band, then are a band again. they formed in the late nineties and unformed, for the first time, in 2005, after three albums, opinions of which can be found on the internet. The path to re-becoming a band started in 2014, with the band playing sporadic shows to raise money for a local venue threatened with closure and after some misadventures, which can be put down to life in its most wonderful forms, in 2025 they will release their first record in twenty years, ‘the world is still here and
so are we’, on ipecac recordings. The band has always been numbered three, but now in its definitive form, being Jack Egglestone, Damien Sayell and Andy Falkous, a lineup who have toured the (mostly english-speaking) world for the last six years to so many people that, at times, they can be referred to as a ‘crowd’.

Nobody has a problem with the live show (apart from maybe the intro music) and if they do, they’re not saying anything. The record, the title of which is either a joke or a deathly serious meditation on hope in a time of hopelessness, is 34 minutes long and is the result of writing much more music than that. The band say that they found it difficult to get the tone of the record – of where and how it needed to exist in time – at first but then it was
easy. fun is the word they use. they mean it. they also say – it was important not to cos-play the past but also not to flubbity-flub over everything like a gang of big stupid flubs. and yes, you can quote them/me on that. It’s important to state that ‘the world is still here and so are we’ is the fourth mclusky album (no qualification being needed). They had an asterisk next to the name for a bit – out of respect for past band members and the precious memorial glue of teenage musical crushes – but fuck that, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Lyrically it touches on subjects as rich and as varied as work-it-out-yourself and impenetrable inside-joke-for-the-band, but one thing is clear, all of the songs have different words.Aall hilarious joking aside, the best songs are about things without being precisely about them. mclusky endorse this sentiment. they positively insist on it.

mclusky are:
damien sayell – bass, vocals, guitar on ‘way of the exploding dickhead’ and ‘hate the polis’
jack egglestone – drums, vocals, percussion
andrew falkous – guitar, vocals, bass on ‘way of the exploding dickhead’

mclusky tour dates:
may 8  –  wrexham, uk – the rockin’ chair
may 16 – tourcoing, fr – ​le grand mix
may 18  –  brussels, be – les nuits botaniques (w/the jesus lizard)
may 23   –  manchester, uk – gorilla
may 24  –  leeds, uk – brudenell
may 29  –  london, uk – electric ballroom
may 31  –  bristol, uk – swx

Forewords by Wayne Carey, Reviews Editor for Louder Than War. His author profile is here