The Muckers – Endeavor

Well, maybe if 2112 were made in 2021…

It’d start like this:

I’d hate to call it a warm summer day, but at some point you gotta respect the classics, your elders. So it was a warm summer day and the theme park was seeing to it. The park is named after some candy or rather the man who made the candy, but neither come up anywhere in the park. This joint’s got teacups, swingers, scramblers. Ships, swings, cars in the dark. A gravitron with big technicolor bulbs that bleed and trail when exposed to velocity. A coaster made out of wood that was built with a hammer and nails. And here come the kids: there’s long-hairs and jean shorts. Everyone’s a lifeguard. No one’s a registered sex offender. This is no country for old men. Old woman sweat, young girls glisten. All the kids are here for a good time. They like the normal scene, but there’s a new ride that’s come to town. It’s got flashing lights and bright colors. It goes hard but it’s never not a smooth ride. It goes all around but never down. It’s loud, man, you can hear it from over by the rival town. They dig it too believe it or not. It’s that good. It’ll be here when I’m old and I’ll put my kids on it. It’ll be just the same ride as ever, a classic of itself from time one to a million. The ride is called Endeavor.

You see, The Muckers are a particularly special group because, where bands of today aim to encapsulate multiple years in a decade as their influence, The Muckers have found a way to encapsulate a single day. A triumvirate of musical coexistence. It’s summer in ‘78. The arenas are slimming down and disco is about to suck. There’s no shortage of denim and the cars are about to let the good times roll. One day in the summer of ‘78 where everything is teetering on the top together. The day before was a climb, and the day after will see some fall the hill. It’s crazy to hear it, and you wonder how The Muckers got it so good. They really leaned into it on the first EP It’s Better Without You which is one of the best breakouts I’ve seen since my 8th grade acne. It would have won “best album cover” if the Academy wasn’t fast asleep. The whole thing fit so beautifully in my hand, I wish it were a ring. This debut album is exactly what you want from an EP follow up: a steady elaboration. We want it to be unique in reference to the previous songs but also to carry out what you started. It’s a meal that got finished, and that isn’t always so. Sometimes it goes down the garbage disposal along with your wrist. Endeavor has polished the sound but made a mix that is more successful in what they wanted with the EP. The vocals sit in the ideal back spot, and there is an air behind them, and an entirely different-sounding air behind the guitars. It’s warm and cold, and they combine to make a friendly cyclone. There is so much more power in the band from before simply because of the mix. I believe they’re really going for the one, here and now. It sounds very true to vinyl format and an Impala Coupe. Speaking of Impala, this album is what those shite hacks Tame Impala think they’re making when they play rock ‘n’ roll every couple years. Piss on ‘em!

The Muckers are a band you might think is run-of-the-mill if you’re passively listening. That’s because these songs hit such a familiarity that you feel you’ve heard them on the radio for the last decade. They have an incredibly exclusive sound that has the perfect way of being taken for granted. If you really dig into the songs, they put fuel in your fire. I’m getting a sense that The Muckers are creating their own world and have offered it up to us. With only one and a half albums, they already have a niche. I know a Muckers song when I hear one. They have these jam-like qualities that also stay to the point and don’t go off too far into the masturbatory. They pound but they also groove. They have a ferocity that is smooth. There’s these rhythms that roller skate under a crystal ball, to a lead that goes beaming through it into your eyes, blinding you to light patterns and shapes of sound.

Well, maybe if Ace Frehley joined The Velvet Underground…

The Muckers and moreover Endeavor is the third bowl of porridge.

They are patriots to a country plugged into a Marshall stack.

Star spangled something.

True big rock ‘n’ roll again from some small NYC outfit.

Just right.

The Muckers
Endeavor
[Greenway]