Waco Brothers

Related Content

• Ten best songs about quitting your job
  August 11, 2011
• Alex Cox, director of Repo Man, joins CU-Boulder's film studies faculty this fall
  May 23, 2011
• The case of the kidnapped coed
  December 15, 2011
• Terrence Malick's haunting Tree of Life will give viewers a lot to think about
  June 9, 2011
• Tonight: Cowboy Mouth at the Bluebird
  January 7, 2011

More About

• Waco
• Jon Langford
• Joe Strummer
• Weddings
• Punk Rock

For a bunch of British and Welsh expatriates who never meant to be a band, the Waco Brothers have just issued their seventh disc for the same label -- a feat deserving honorable mention in today's age of drive-thru weddings and duplicitous record deals. Unfortunately, the sardonic country side project of the Mekons' Jon Langford has lost most of its bite. Although the world-weary Langford has mastered every available musical style since turning punk inside out in the late '70s, the Leeds native now seems content to examine America's festering underbelly with vague references to working-class angst, celebrity privilege and the clumsy ghosts of history. Sure, he'll take a good, timely swipe at Dubya ("Chosen One") or evoke the late Joe Strummer while condemning "casual torture abroad" ("Missing Link"). But this go-round, the Waco Brothers sound like aging activists more concerned with bolo ties than political reform.