The Megaphonic Thrift - The Megaphonic Thrift

For their second, self-titled album The Megaphonic Thrift have returned to their roots as imagined on their debut EP ‘A Thousand Years Of Deconstruction’. Where ‘Decay Decoy’ hinted at moves towards post-rock and away from their early, chaotic noise experimentation, ‘The Megaphonic Thrift’ seems to gleefully revel in its Sonic Youth fanboyism and MBV-lite stylings.

There’s more odd tunings and whammy bar antics than you can shake a Jazzmaster at, and although the songs do completely blur into one mass of vocals, drums and reverb there’s still a lot to commend this record. As soon as you stop thinking of it exactly as discrete songs and zone out a little, suddenly it becomes more like a …Trail Of Dead record; the bastard child of punk and prog, a no-wave concept experiment, and it’s with this leap of understanding that it can be truly appreciated.

Though not really in the same league as …Trail Of Dead’s self-titled record, ‘Madonna’ or indeed ‘Tao Of The Dead’ – to name only their spikiest and most self-indulgent releases – there’s still something very familiar about these gang vocals, sweeping, irregular dynamics and squalls of barely-restrained feedback.

Ultimately there are no tracks that really stand out any more than the crowd, which is what bars this record from higher marks; but then, there are no bad tracks either, and the whole package is very listenable. It may not be the career high they were hoping for, but since The Megaphonic Thrift are clearly far from spent it hopefully marks a stepping stone to pastures new.