There's a good reason why critics darlings bands are critics darlings bands. Because if the public don't notice how good something is someone has to be there to tell the tale and it might as well be those who write about music for a living. So for Big Star and The Go Betweens before them now we have Cincinnati band Wussy and their new album, (their seventh in all), What Heaven Is Like, just out, a record of blazing, ragged glory that Neil himself might appreciate.
Fronted by Lisa Walker and Chuck Cleaver Wussy are a band in the line of X, Madder Rose and Houndstooth all wailing guitars and keening vocals, the sound of the road, the prairies, late night neon lit bars, cigarettes, plaid shirts, beers and bourbon. You paint your own picture. Walker's evocative voice gives them another dimension, she has something of the trembling quality of Kristen Hersh and as a result the songs here achieve something of the haunted strangeness of that wonderful, first Throwing Muses album.
Remarkably the band still has nine to five jobs to manage the trajectory of Wussy around. This is remarkable and remarkably wrong. They're currently in the middle of a short tour of small UK venues and I envy those who are getting to see them because sadly they're not coming anywhere close to me. What Heaven Is Like is a thing of wonder. Stalwart critic Robert Christgau has called them the best band in America and it's clear to see where he's coming from. I've struggled with the new Arctic Monkeys album over the last couple of weeks, a record that has neither melodies nor choruses, (and seems strangely proud of the lack of either), but I think I'll stop struggling. Wussy answer all my immediate needs.
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