Ambling through 12 songs in just under 20 minutes, the Perth, Australia post-punk primitivists' self-titled debut is a document of deep and devoted slacker-ism.
Find it at:Amoeba Music
Two 7" singles and a split cassette into their career, Taco Leg have yet to discover chords. The Perth, Australia, trio are post-punk primitivists, playing one-minute songs built from single-note guitar riffs, shoes-in-the-dryer drum beats, and deadpan vocals that relate, with varying degrees of disinterest, the details of bad dates, hot days, and naps. Sloppy, unpolished, and completely undeterred by their lack of chops, had they showed up 30 years earlier, Taco Leg would have made a cozy addition to a Messthetics comp. The band's self-titled debut LP is not unlikeable, though. Ambling through 12 songs in just under 20 minutes, it's a document of deep and devoted slacker-ism.
Following in the footsteps of Melbourne punks, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Taco Leg's songs swap out political commentary, youth angst, and self-examination for lyrics devoted to banal, workaday befuddlement. Eddy Current played tense, minimalist music, but sidestepped aggro rock clichés by singing about eating ice cream, wake up calls, and color television. Taco Leg skews a little wackier in their choice of prose. "Saw the ball/ It was coming/ Cracked my whip under the door," yelps singer, Andrew Murray. If you had any lingering doubts about the song's inspiration, he clears them up during the chorus, shouting, "Raiders of the Lost Ark." On "Find Me", Murray sings about playing hide and seek and "Hot One" finds him listing ways to beat the heat. Meanwhile, the rhythm section plugs away with the zeal of some nervous after-school rock camp first-timers.
Rather than shield their wobbly riffs in sheets of distortion and grit, Taco Leg fess up, delivering clear and crisp recordings of their shambolic tunes. A little more fuzz might have helped. It's not a lack of chops that holds Taco Leg back, but their inability to let loose. The recordings sound stripped down and live, like they were put straight to tape in a basement, but most of the time the band comes off like they're looking at their sneakers. Each muddled, mid-tempo, surf-rock riff slips anonymously into the next. Whether they've adopted a rigorous, anti-careerist ideology or just can't play guitar very well, Taco Leg's refusal or inability to step on the gas is a drag after a while. But there's a purity in their goofball noodling. Taco Leg play what they know, as enthusiastically as they are capable, even if that's only three ragged notes.