One from The Vault: Leatherface: Mush
ALBUM REVIEW: A serious shuffle... Leatherface’s immaculate third album.
Leatherface: Mush
Roughneck Records
1991
The thing is, barring a handful of stalwarts - Loop, Spacemen 3, Therapy?, Teenage Fanclub… the heavier side of the 1991 UK indie scene was fallow compared to the explosion of exotic guitar-driven excitement that was inexhaustibly annihilating us from the other side of the Atlantic. Even the best we had to offer seemed a bit more sensitive and delicate than the heavyweight blue-collar thunder that was spewing into our record shops from America at the time.
Untouchable kings of the UK, for my peers and I, at least, were undoubtedly Sunderland’s Leatherface. They stood head and shoulders over anything else that our hometowns were exporting musically. They had the emotional poetry of Frankie Stubbs’ lyrics, which far surpassed any of the bands I mentioned in the opening statement, an adult sensitivity that exposed (even) Moz as a bleating, bookish, adultescent, alongside a personal accessibility that was truly exciting. They were/are lovely, humble, ego-less people.
On top of that, their music was unique and totally awe-inspiring. At first it felt impenetrable. Fast like Snuff, rough like Motorhead, punk like Fugazi, intricate like no-one else. It’s still incomparable. None of those references are accurate at all. But the more you listened, the more was exposed. Delicate melodies, anthemic vocal lines and pure fucking poetry.
Frankie’s lyrics moved me so much that they formed a significant part of my Fine Art degree show - saying what I needed to say so much more elegantly than I could myself. Simply and beautifully.
Every so often, a spam post hits social media and challenges the reader to name an album that’s a 10/10; no skipped tracks, all killer, no filler… Every time, despite having several of them spring to mind, Mush jumps to the front of the queue.
In a murder of brilliance, Mush caws the loudest.
A crackle, a pop. And then…
Is there a better opener than I Want The Moon on any album, ever?
Probably not.
As a statement of intent, it is bold, humble and sarcastic at the same time: “I’m over the fucking moon; I don’t expect too much from honeymoons…”. The track leaves you adrenalised and sets you up perfectly for the entire album to come. Always a highlight live, it is the perfect rabble-rouser for a club full of ne’er-do-wells with its straightforward main riff and shout-a-long chorus.
How Lonely follows with its ear-worming refrain, before I Don’t Want To Be The One To Say’s spidering chords come in: “And I would rather die than leave you to while away…”. A hymn to wasted potential.
Pandora’s Box is the first track of the album I remember really chiming with me. It’s an easy one to embrace, with the clarity of its amusing post chorus: “Don’t fuck with Pandora’s Box…” and one of my favourite lines on the LP: “Pub Politics - with all your drunken hindsight, you’ll never achieve anything.” Another ode to getting off your arse and the wastefulness of not doing so.
That line has stayed with me for more than 30 years. It says so much; we all know too many armchair anarchists - I’m probably one myself, at times.
We pass, at lightning speed, through the brutal whimsy of Not A Day Goes By: “No I didn’t think you were wrong - and I can still sing your favourite song…” but for all its distorted sentimentality, it’s a mere stepping stone to side one’s crescendo and high point - perhaps the song of the album - certainly a career highlight - Not Superstitious.
The song still forms an integral part of Frankie’s repertoire - live and acoustically. That must say something about its timeless appeal and high ranking with fans of his songwriting, but for my money, regardless of genre, fondness or expectation, it is simply a really well written song in any circumstance. Lyrically, it is somehow helpless, disdainful of hypocrisy and altruistic in equal measure.
It’s so good that I am going to reproduce the entire song’s lyrics here:
“You’re not a politician, but without a thought you’d build a fort to defend what you are. You’re not religious, but without Catholicism, you would turn to God to save your soul.
And all I can do is try my best for you, with all my indecision.
You’re not superstitious but without charm you would touch wood, if you thought it’d do good. You’re not the sporting type, but without a gripe you would bet your life if you thought you were right.
And all I can do is try my best for you. I can live with indecision.
We all need an attitude.”
There’s a theme throughout the album of calling out lies and laziness.
Perhaps that’s why it still resonates down the decades.
I think it’s Leatherface’s Paranoid, Whole Lotta Rosie or Anarchy in the UK.
Side two kicks off with the saddest song of the twelve, Springtime: “There’s a little bit of springtime in the back of my mind that remembers things, perhaps as they should have been, rather than the lies, rather than the cruelty that sometimes we were sometimes guilty of…”.
Those words have always affected me. Days going by like wild horses over a hill and all that. A weary tribute to lost years.
Then we kick into the blistering Winning, which I recall being the last track to resonate with me - it felt so fast and crammed at first, that I couldn’t penetrate it until i saw it live and its sarcastic majesty was unveiled before my eyes and ears.
Mush continues flawlessly - we blast through the trifecta of perfect punk with In The Real World, Baked Potato and Bowl Of Flies, each a crowning glory of their own on any other album, but here, together forming the yellow brick road to the album’s own Emerald City, Dead Industrial Atmosphere, which, along with Not Superstitious has become a trademark song for the band. It’s a classic; a Wordsworthian tribute to The Great North, with its breweries, roast dinners, green hills and Satanic mills.
Even if you’ve never been there, it’s capable of dewing up your eyes with its nostalgia for the past, despair for the present and resolution for the future.
I realise that convention states that you’re not supposed to go through an album track by track, quote lyrics and offer unbiased adulation in a review, but fuck that. The lyrics are such a central part of Mush’s resonance that they need to be exposed. They’re too easily lost in the noise of the songs - they only reveal themselves as you read the sleeve in time-honoured tradition, as you listen intently on the sofa like the last 30-odd years never happened.
So; think of this review as an inadequate shortcut to some of the highlights of Mush. There’s so much more to be revealed as you dig in yourself and really listen.
The record packaging itself is disarmingly unremarkable; an inner sleeve containing said lyrics being the highlight. It disguises the enormity within by its hiding-in-plain-sight presentation. You could easily pass it by. It was remastered and repressed in 2021 on Fire Records with more detailed liner notes, extra tracks and cover versions from the CD. Grab yourself a copy if you can still find one.
On a related note, Leatherface were renowned at the time for delivering a fine line in superfast punked up covers of unlikely songs. Every one’s a winner; Can’t Help Falling In Love, In the Ghetto, Eagle, Candle in the Wind, The Ship Song, True Colors, Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution - and associated with this time period - Message in a Bottle and You Are My Sunshine. It’s amazing how their treatment of songs you’ve heard elsewhere a million times before introduces a previously missed profundity.
It’s a cool side quest to dig into when you’re discovering Leatherface; worth rooting out as B-Sides and extra tracks across their discography.
The band’s final release, The Stormy Petrel, was released in 2010 after a long break and, for my money, is the album in their discography that comes the closest to Mush’s greatness, although everything they released still stands up today as relevant, engaging and pretty much vital.
Frankie is still playing all-too-rare live acoustic shows, where several Mush songs are still aired. Go and see him if you get the chance. I honestly believe he’s one of our greatest living poets.
And remember, kids: “Impersonating Cliff Richard’s lip or Iggy with a bottle is not as ridiculous as Black Rod knocking on the door once a year, and never getting in, because he wants the people to come and listen to the Queen”.
FNWS, 1991.