Buck Brothers – We Are Merely Filters

If London pop punk group Buck Brothers wrote a movie script, it would come filled with cheap slapstick and juvenile humour.  As seen by the trio of ankle-downed pants on the cover of their sophomore album, We Are Merely Filters, the band makes no effort to cover up their childish mindset.  Peek inside the sleeve and the band welcomes listeners with a photomontage of blow-up dolls, alcaholism, and bandmates passed out in a bathtub.  As the saying goes, what you see is what you get, and in this case, what you get is total disregard for manners or self-respect.

Buck Brothers open their self-depreciating trip with “All I Want To Do,” a track serving as somewhat of a mission behind the madness.  “Boogie-woogie to your indifference/keep moving to what you don’t know/side step everything that’s happening/outside your safe little world” pipes up Andy Duke, in his very, hyperactive-Clash inspired vocal way of doing things, to which he follows with a chours of “life Is cruel, religion sucks, and all I want to do is dance.”  This is a group living in the moment, more or less abandoning the confines of self-censorship, so at the very least, they’re aiming for a little more than mere shock value.

Taken as a whole, the boys’ exploits come across as a mixed bag – sometimes leading to a good chuckle, but at others resulting in rolled eyes and sighs of disbelief.  When it works, the songs come together with a quick wit and sharp tongue – as per “No More Yesterdays.”  Here the band hits the one-liners with purpose and precision, capturing exactly what they intend.  The song follows the mishaps of a true, bottom of the barrel failure that just can’t get a break.  In the process, the band actually makes use of some smart metaphors; a couple of my favourites being “like a Quaker with turrets, you’ll always be the worst,” and “like a dancer with no beat, we’re out of sync” – while not groundbreaking, the imagery just fits the bill.  But when the madness doesn’t pan out, it really incited a cringe.  The worst offender has to be “She’s Not Wearing Any,” a tune built solely on the premise of throwing listeners into a steamy, suggestive mindset, with the chorus revealing that the subject of the track (an out-of-your-league-crush) well, “not wearing any,” leaving “any” up to listeners’ dirty minds to be determined.  The band tries playing off a supercharged, hyper sexuality, but just comes off like a bad joke repeated far too many times for comfort.

Oddly enough, for a band brimming with such spatiality, Buck Brothers realize their fullest potential during an original take on New Wave group M’s 1979 single, “Pop Muzik.”  Granted, the song is tons of fun, with the band giving an otherwise outdated relic a new lease on life.  The lively tune even includes what is no doubt the band’s mantra in a short line, that being how Buck Brothers’ are truly “a slave to every catchy tune” – a statement few could contest considering the hook-heavy album.  The band also seems to have caught on to how the track’s lead riff sounds like something out of the Ghostbusters’ theme, poking fun at it towards the track’s end, which serves as a huge payoff considering most listeners (myself included) will be making the comparison every other second.

The accompanying press release characterizes We Are Merely Filters as an “all out assault on your brain” – that’s definitely one-way to put it.  While not an album I’ll be returning to regularly, it still offers enough goofy charm to make some of the smarter tracks worth tuning in for.  If you can get past the album’s hit-or-miss nature, there’s some good fun to be had.