Macaca Mulatta AAA by: Liam Tracey Fri:20-Jun-08 Label: Antescene Year: 2008 WB rating 55 out of 100

When Chris Chincilla left Art Brut to front his own project, he took with him the style of his former English rock mates and upped his attitude tenfold. Born is Macaca Mulatta, Chincilla’s new four piece that is a clever reworking of your run-of-the-mill grimy punk. Macaca Mulatta will have little difficulty drawing most fans of Chincilla’s former project (he did leave on good terms by the way), as well as a few more one would guess. The anti-establishment feel throughout the whole half hour of the band’s debut, AAA, is bundled together nicely and caps off with the ever-so-charming lines on ‘England’, “England is sinking/I can’t stop thinking/Was it ever that great in the first place?” Damn straight.

While it hardly seems the case with most albums that sound “under produced”, it is in fact the rawness of AAA that makes it so appealing in the first place. Chincilla’s blasting accent and the disgruntled guitar play on the record would simply sound wrong if they were given to a slick producer and made to sound shiny and clean. This album is dirty – hell, Chincilla gets to drop the c-bomb and call anyone whatever he wants.

Don’t seek this album out if you’re looking for something new and inventive; AAA is made for immediacy and nothing more. Repetitive call and response lyrics on ‘Dancing on a Weeknight’ and ‘In Your Head’ take an anthem-like approach that evokes images of kids destroying furniture in their living room as they thrash about. Macaca Mulatta are purposely trying to incite excitement and loud, familiar hooks are all it seems to take as far as they’re concerned.

Protesting the state of their country is one thing, but Macaca Mulatta actually manage to make their “lack of girls” status an issue that is equally rant-worthy. The track in question, ‘Just Love Me’, is the highlight of the album and mixes baseless complaints with mangled guitars. The track with the same name as the band is equally as fun, with its very Arctic Monkeys-sounding beginnings – that are all instrumental – and chants of “Macaca Mulatta” toward the end. The chants are raucous and out of time, but at the very least they let everyone know how to pronounce the band’s name.

As Chincilla has not only borrowed the basic musical style of Art Brut, he has taken many a quality from Eddie Argos, Art Brut’s front man. For those unaware, Argos opts to speak and yell his lyrics rather than sing them; with a style that’s loved or hated – as simple as that. Chincilla takes the same “spoken-lyric” approach, which gives him a little more freedom to move on top of the music instead of along with it – this only enhancing the punk, don’t-give-a-damn attitude spilt throughout the whole disc. Despite this album’s revisitation status, AAA remains a more-than-adequate album that’ll incite a little fervour in anyone with an inner punk.