Customer Reviews

The Minus 5

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Another outstanding album from Scott McCaughey and company.

Without any hint of Fab Four imitation (although the influence is there), the Minus 5 provide many of the same qualities on their albums that the Beatles used to give us - a wide variety of song types (rock, psychedelic, pop, country-rock), well-sung melodies that you won't forget, great vocal harmonies, and superbly creative instrumental backings. Even though you may feel like you know these songs the first time you hear them, you'll find yourself discovering new aspects in them each time you listen because they're that well written. ("Out There On The Maroon" and "Cigarettes Coffee and Booze" are just two of several examples on this album.)

Scott McCaughey is the mastermind of the Minus 5 - his excellent songs and voice are the common thread running through most of the group's recordings (although he occasionally turns over the lead vocal chores to guests). I saw an interview with Mr. McCaughey recently in which he speculated that fans at the group's live shows probably didn't care much about having him autograph their albums because their focus was on his most frequent Minus 5 collaborator, Peter Buck of R.E.M. Well, Mr. Buck obviously contributes a great deal to the band, but Mr. McCaughey is the band member who writes (or co-writes) virtually all of their songs and sings the vast majority, as well as playing quite a few instruments on the records. Without taking anything away from the significant contributions of Peter Buck and the other band members, I hope that Scott keeps in mind that Minus 5 listeners are there for his songs and his singing.

The "Gun Album," as this CD is being called, is another Minus 5 gem, a worthy successor to, among others, "Down with Wilco," "In Rock," "At the Organ," "I Don't Know Who I Am," "Let the War Against Music Begin," and the sadly out-of-print "Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy." If there were any justice in the music world, Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck would be celebrating another in a long line of chart-topping albums. As it is, they and their collaborators have given us an album that you'll want to hear over and over.

By the way, if you have a chance to see the Minus 5 live, do it. They play an energetic show that not only includes rocking performances of their excellent original songs, but also some well-played covers. (When I saw them a couple of weeks ago at a tiny club, they included Neil Young's "Burned" from his Buffalo Springfield days, and the Mike Nesmith/Monkees classic "Circle Sky.") And you might get a chance, before or after the show, to chat with Scott and Peter, who seem like pretty decent guys.

$16.98 for this CD? It's excessive but one of the few I'd say is worth it.

I loved "Down With Wilco" and "In Rock" and own every other Minus 5 album, but this one has got to be the most impressive. It showcases frontman Scott McCaughey's humor and witty lyrics to a T. Overall, it's a wonderful and, although it does have a track or two cast-off from another source ("Hotel Senator" is from the Wilco sessions), they're re-worked to fit nicely into the grand scheme of things on this album.

The highlight for me is "Cemetary Row" with Colin Meloy guesting on vocals. As a loyal Decemberists fan, I was excited to hear he was guesting on the album, but I didn't expect how wonderful the song would actually be. It sounds like Scott wrote it just for Colin to sing. Brilliant.

This side project of the Young Fresh Fellows' (and R.E.M. sideman) Scott McCaughey was originally conceived to catch the overflow from his prolific reservoir of songwriting. The Minus Five are more a constantly changing collective than an evolving band, with a complex history of membership, recording circumstances and releases. Initially formed by McCaughey with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, and subsequently adding The Posies Jon Auer and Ken Stringfield, the Minus Five released a mailorder-only EP, an indie full-length and a full-length for the major-label subsidiary Hollywood. McCaughey's solo album was reissued as a Minus Five release, there was a one-off collection with Wilco issued under the Minus Five moniker, and outtakes from earlier sessions populated later albums. What's held this scavenger's path together has been McCaughey, whose voice and cockeyed songs have been the unifying thread.

McCaughey's fascination with the Beatles is on full display with the opener, blending a Lennon-esque vocal with strings and thudding Paul-and-Ringo styled piano-and-drums. McCaughey leads the collective through raucous Northwest rock, baroque pop, Nashville Skyline folk, and twangy country-rock, melding dark lyrical fragments with the craft of a pop album. In addition to the core "Five" of McCaughey, Buck, Bill Rieflin and John Ramberg, guests include the Decemberists' Collin Melroy providing vocals on the country-pop ballad "Cemetery Row," Wilco on "With a Gun" and Kelly Hogan and John Wesley Harding on "Twilight Distillery." Though recorded in dribs and drabs with a floating coterie of participants in a variety of locations and under varying circumstances, the songs truly hang together as an album that's sure to please Minus Five (and Scott McCaughey's collective of) fans. [©2006 hyperbolium dot com]

After purchasing the band's album "Down With Wilco" a few years ago, this CD seemed like a worthy next buy. The sound clips provided were strong, but the album really doesn't hold up throughout. Tracks like "Bought a Rope" and "Aw S___ Man" are throwaways. This articulate group should know better. A few strong moments, though.

The Minus 5's eponymous album is not quite up to the standards of their two best works, In Rock & Down With Wilco, but is still a strong collection of songs. Scott McCaughey puts the musical stylings all over the map from the Beatlesque sounds of "Out There On The Maroon", "My Life As A Creep" and "All Worn Out" to the Exile On Main Street sounding "Cigarettes Coffee and Booze" to the punkish "Aw Sh*t Man" to the plain weird sounding "Hotel Senator". The Decembrists' Colin Meloy sings lead on "Cemetery Row" and the boys from Wilco add depth to "With A Gun". The opening track "Rifle Called Goodbye" is the best song on the album followed closely by the twangy "Twilight Distillery".

Minus 5 delivers pop that takes us on a journey through simple melodies and complex deliveries, which with every listen finds me searching deeper into every song, which is so rare in the industry today. It's brilliant. His comparisons to The Beatles is justified to the sense that each song is timeless, which can be said for all their cd's. 'Down With Wilco' is as great a listen now as it was 4 years ago. I highley reccomend this cd.

The Minus five, often referred to as the "Gun" album due to its cover art as well as the fact that 5 of the tracks involve firearms as their subject matter, is a highly unusual album. A project of Scott McCaughey, the "band" consists of several of the friends and acquaintances Scott has made overt he years as a well regarded session musician. The range of musical styles employed here is rather wide and the lyrics are engaging and inventive, if often rather obscure ("The quartermaster baked a radio" is a typical sample).

This is definitely a "guy" sort of endeavor. The songs remind me of the types of conversations that one would encounter in the locker room, during a evening of cards, out at the hunting lodge. A bit crass and crude with a seriously sexist bent. With song's like "Coffee, Cigarettes and Booze" and "Aw (Bleep) Man" making the cut one gets this viewpoint early and often throughout the disc. My wife and daughter hated it, my son and best friend loved it. It's just that sort of album.

All in all a very enjoyable undertaking. I have to say that while this is not great art, it is engaging and entertaining-great road music.

All in all very enjoyable fluff of a very high order.

There are certainly some catchy songs on this record, but I would categorize most as filler that could have been cut. You can tell which songs were written by different members- there are some that are repetitive Beatle-album-cut sort of songs (the ones that should have been left off the record IMHO) and the countryfied ones that are great, memorable, and should the whole album have had the same treatment with pedal steel, organ, etc, it would have been a lot more cohesive.