The Minus 5 “Oar on, Penelope!”

Power pop’s Zelig returns to the fray with an exhilarating set of songs.

If you were to draw a Venn diagram regarding American bands tagged variously as No Depression, College Rock, Alt-Country, Paisley Underground and power pop, chances are that Scott McCaughey would be at the centre of the intersections. To quote a recent article, “Over the last four decades, McCaughey has been the Mad Hatter at an eternally rocking tea party where pals from Wilco, The Baseball Project, R.E.M., Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3, The Decemberists, The Bangles, NRBQ, The Dream Syndicate, The Posies, and others help bring his slightly skewed visions to life.”

In his own right, McCaughey has helmed two fine bands, Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5, the latter quite a moveable feast of a band, the lineup fluctuating with various members from many of the aforementioned enlisted from time to time. Following a debilitating stroke in 2017, McCaughey recovered to the extent that he recorded “Stroke Manor” in 2019, a disc which detailed his rehabilitation that was released as the 13^th Minus 5 album.

“Oar On, Penelope!” finds McCaughey, as ever, surrounded by some talented friends including Peter Buck, Patterson Hood, Debbi Peterson and Linda Pitmon. It’s quite a snarly album, suffused with a punk attitude amidst the power pop trappings and it’s an exhilarating listen.  Check out ‘Death The Bludgeoner’ for a full-on trip into Stooges-like rock’n’roll with a slice of Brill Building choruses to sweeten the pill and then dive headlong into the trippy, garage punk psychedelia on ‘Let The Rope Hold, Cassie Lee’ and prepare to be thrilled.

The album opens with the stomping romp which is ‘Words And Birds’ with McCaughey in full power pop mode. The album title, a nod to Odysseus’s wife in The Odyssey, is taken from the lyrics of this song with McCaughey saying of it, “It was just a shout out to women in general because the world is so fucked up and it’d be so much better if women were in charge.” As the album progresses, there’s a slew of varieties on show, such as the slow drag of ‘Bison Queen’ and the helium-like take on those classic duets between Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, which is ‘Blow In My Bag’ while there is some seriously skewed psychedelia on ‘Sharktooth’. He closes with a finely judged slice of jangled pop on ‘We Shall Not Be Released’ replete with a wigged-out guitar solo, an appropriate close to an album which celebrates McCaughey’s credentials as a mover and shaker while appreciating that he has his own unique vision.