Art Brut | Art Brut Vs. Satan

Most Likely To: be playing on Jonathan Richman’s radio out on Route 128.

Intentional artlessness is much harder to pull off than one would suspect. By comparison, being “artistic” is a relative snap and likely a haven for all manner of scoundrels. At the end of the day, what proportion of listeners honestly have a clue what Elvis Costello or Bob Dylan are going on about half the time compared to those who just pretend they do in order to not look stupid? Michael Stipe will swear from Kentucky to Grandma that a song like “Swan Swan H” is a poetic meditation on the Civil War and who knows? Maybe a line like “A pistol hot cup of rhyme / the whiskey is water and water is wine” really is some sort of deep evocation of the Second Battle of Bull Run or something.

But we really only have Stipe’s word for that, and while he should of course be given the benefit of the doubt, it’s hard not to wonder if in reality it’s not just a bunch of nonsense phrases that sound pretty cool strung together, and the Civil War is just a cover story. Or as Stipe himself might say, “Up to par, Katy bar the kitchen door but not me in.”

But to be artless, to say something about nothing much in clear but engaging language and make people care-–that takes skill, and there’s a reason not many people do it and even fewer do it well. There’s no wiggle room in artlessness–the slightest hint of disingenuousness sinks the whole thing. When that dog. filled their debut album with ditties about infomercials and old people in line at the cafeteria, they did so with a smirk and the whole thing was an annoying exercise in coy cutesiness. By contrast, Jonathan Richman has built a long and rewarding career musing about chewing gum wrappers and why he prefers Wrangler blue jeans (they fit his ass better than Levis) by being utterly sincere and able to express that sincerity in clever but clear wordplay. Richman has been the King of Artlessness for nearly four decades now, but he’s finally gotten a serious challenger in Eddie Argos of Art Brut.

For three albums now, Argos has wrapped his Hugh Cornwellian yelp around lyrics dealing with such concerns as considering moving or the utter awesomeness of seeing a new girlfriend naked (twice!), all without a metaphor or self-knowing wink in sight. On Art Brut Vs. Satan, he muses on the greatness of “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes,” the sexy nerdiness of girls who work at comic stores, and how great The Replacements were, even though they’re as old as his parents. He’s also a master of the embarrassing confession, such as on “Am I Normal,” where he dwells on all the times he wussed out from talking to a girl he had a crush on. Of course, Argos’ lyrics are only half of the Art Brut equation, and he’s fortunate to be backed by a shit-hot band capable of spewing hook-filled ’70s style U.K. punk riffs and the occasional Sham 69 football chant, making a song like “What a Rush” an irresistible blast of adrenaline.

Producer Frank Black doesn’t guide the band to deviate much from the formula established on the first two albums, but that’s no concern yet. The only slight misstep is recording a song about the greatness of lo-fi recording (“Slap Dash for No Cash”) while employing a fairly well known individual as producer (they presumably didn’t hire Black just to hit the record button then prop his feet up on the desk and do sudoku) but that’s a minor carp. As long as Art Brut are able to keep churning out songs about workaday matters that simultaneously make one bang the head and laugh the ass off in recognition, the formula will be far from played out. It may not be artistic, but it is art.