Product Description

This is another Minus 5 album. Now the eighth LP from the loose creative collective/serious drinking association helmed by wayfarer and musical enabler Scott McCaughey. This one is called KILLINGSWORTH. a recording worthy of the murders committed during it's genesis? Perhaps. Incoherent yarns mostly told after midnight by highway hobos in and around Portland, Oregon? Surely. KILLINGSWORTH features an incarnation of The Minus 5 including apparatus support poles "McOi," Peter Buck and John Moen (Decemberists). Other gypsies in the carnival include the She Bee Gees, further Decemberists Colin Meloy, Jenny Conlee, Chris Funk, Nate Query and many more. Pedal steel belted radials drive throughout the gravelly fern-lined byways of the neighborhood of KILLINGSWORTH. Either ride along with the show or get out of the way of it's careening wheel man, drunk with liquor and blood. Up to you, friend.

Review

As a linchpin of Seattle's rock scene for the last few decades, Scott McCaughey's surely granted a few favors and garnered his share of goodwill. Still, there must be more to the guy, given the artists he's been able to call in for his ongoing project the Minus 5. As a longtime R.E.M. auxiliary player, roping in pal and Pacific Northwest neighbor Peter Buck was probably a no-brainer, as was the participation of fellow R.E.M. helper Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer, Stringfellow's partner from the Posies. But the number of helping hands just kept growing. Soon the Minus 5, originally conceived as a solo parallel to McCaughey's ongoing Young Fresh Fellows endeavors, attracted input and contributions from members of Pearl Jam, Guided by Voices, Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, and the Decemberists, among many, many others, and the list keeps getting longer.
Certainly the presence of all these high-profile guests elevates the Minus 5 above mere side-project, but even so, McCaughey has done a remarkable job keeping things relatively low-key. It turns out that what McCaughey's done right all these years is rarely gone egregiously wrong. On Killingsworth, he and Buck are joined by the bulk of the Decemberists, and given that band's predilection for overblown pomp-rock you'd be forgiven for thinking this disc might follow suit. Yet everyone is on their best behavior here, subdued in service of some of McCaughey's more somber songs, mostly in mellow country-rock mode that hovers somewhere between the Byrds and Big Star (with some touches of the Dead's genial twang tossed in for good measure).
Of course, the disc's unassuming demeanor may have had something to do with McCaughey's ongoing work with the Young Fresh Fellows, whose concurrent I Think This Is was produced by Robyn Hitchcock and which offers McCaughey ample opportunity to get his ya-ya's out. Yet one can't help but be impressed by McCaughey's ability to not just juggle hats but do so convincingly. Killingsworth is hardly some clearing-house but a fully realized start-to-finish album, with each of its 14 songs very much of a piece and the overall effect the farthest thing from a lark.
Quality tracks like ''The Long Hall'', ''The Lurking Barrister'', ''It Won't Do You Any Good'', and ''Ambulance Dancehall'' are the sorts of songs buddy Jeff Tweedy stopped writing circa Being There, but that's not a criticism of either artist, especially considering how well McCaughey has taken to the style. McCaughey also subtly sifts through rock's storied back pages to construct the likes of ''Vintage Violet'', ''The Disembowelers'', ''Smoke On, Jerry'', ''Your Favorite Mess'', and ''Scott Walker's Fault'', the last featuring Colin Meloy on vocals.
Each may be informed by familiar genre tropes and the usual musical inspirations, yet they're hardly redundant retreads. Far from it. Rather, McCaughey embraces and embodies his 1960s and 70s touchstones (twisted, as might be expected, by often sneakily subversive lyrics) but he never relies on them, so they never overwhelm the proceedings and send it into pastiche. The ever-modest McCaughey's aversion to flash may mean he'll never be as famous as many of his friends, and he knows it, but that glass ceiling has apparently also freed him. While his friends gallivant about sometimes trying too hard, he's quietly managed to foster a career in the shadows strong enough to keep pulling in those peers for a taste of the good stuff. --Pitchfork