Category: Video

At One With Nature is released on September 11^th, twelve years since Mr Plow’s last album. The band are from Leicestershire, have recorded for Radio 2 at the BBC’s Maida Vale, have been featured in the Sunday Times, take their name from a famous Simpson’s episode, and, as they point out, “have played to crowds of thousands (and also to crowds of absolutely nobody)”. They describe themselves as playing “songs of despair and malevolent misfortune” and the new album as having “twelve new noir musical adventures ready to find their way into the wild”.

Consequently, I opened the CD wrapper with hesitant expectation; they sound like my kind of thing, but it’s a creative balance that’s difficult to pull off (what on earth do “lo-fi Gothic Americana pallbearers” really sound like?).

The album opens with ‘The Great Dismal Swamp’ – all fuzzy guitar and a first verse that ends

“Did you see no security / drag you blindfolded / Way out to where lights never shone  
Were you drowned in the great dismal swamp”

Imagine a Duane Eddy lead guitar break, combined with punk energy, inspired by ‘Purple Haze’ and played with a dodgy lead connecting the guitars to the amps. Lincoln W. Plow’s guitarwork does this deliberately, as does Alex Scoppie’s bass. Mark Haynes’ drums hold the whole thing together. By the end of this opening track, I’m hooked.

‘A Bigger Better Jesus’ follows. It has an underpinning melody that would make for a great country song. However … the scuzzy arrangement and the lyrics mean that the song is unlikely to get played on many religious broadcasts:

“… No rainbow banners hanging from our door./We got a rat-shit right-wing Jesus / We don’t love our neighbours / We don’t feed no poor. We got a bigger, better Jesus / We’re not asking for forgiveness / any more”

By the end of this second track, I know what the promotional description “lo-fi Gothic Americana pallbearers” sounds like.

There are ten more tracks and these also don’t disappoint. ‘Every Loser Loses Again’ finishes with the four words of the title and then, to make the point, repeats the word “again” a further 23 times before it fades completely. ‘Surf Nazis Must Die’ is an instrumental, both upbeat and scuzzy – the sound of The Shadows meeting Duane Eddy in an underground prison cell.

By now I’ve become aware that the uniqueness of Mr Plow compels me to write bizarre metaphors to give a feel. Hence my notes describe ‘Mud Mountain’ as

• having a guitar that squeals its pain to a rhythm that trolls in the mountains of Moria could advance to
• the sound of late-night biker club music in the caves and archways of some underworld cavern

I’ll leave both in. Take your pick.

And yet, the style I’ve described above is far from the whole of At One With Nature.

Whilst the lyrics of ‘Nineteen Twenty’ may not be the jolliest – “Coughing up the black clots from your lungs .. if the virus don’t kill you, I’m going to kill you, I will” – the guitar and bass are clean-sounding on a slow country-ish melody.

‘The Happiest Person Alive’ is jolly … albeit with an opening lyric:

“She broke both his arms and she beat him and left him to die
She burnt down his house and she tied all friends up with lies
Now the doctors won’t say if his injuries can be survived
Still, he whispers to me he’s the happiest person, the happiest person, alive”

The story gets darker as it progresses – and the jolliness of the playing only enhances the track and the discordance of the story.

It’s no surprise, then, that there’s also a track about the ‘Village Of The Damned’; or ‘300 lbs’ where we get into the realms of hubris and nemesis since the song’s focus is the shooting of a large animal, “My victory, Praise The Lord”. As the shooter stands wondering what he can do with the carcass, the not-dead animal slams into his chest so that his own guts tumble out.

In the unlikely event you miss the double take of Mr Plow’s language, the video below for ‘We Are Not Your Friends’ makes sure you see the badge, ‘Liar’, on the politician’s lapel. It’s a great introduction to their style.

At One With Nature lasts for forty minutes, there are twelve tracks – and for forty minutes the band manage a wonderful creative balance: between their very listenable musicality and the darkness of the lyrics; between the humour of their delivery and the seriousness of their messages. It’s good to hear them back again.

Mr Plow are playing a few gigs in September and October in the Midlands, details on their webpage.

Mike Wistow

Artists’ website: https://www.facebook.com/mrplowsplace

‘We Are Not Your Friends’ – official video: