Mico

What a difference three years makes. Since the 2003 release of Mico’s G7 debut Outside the Unbearable Grows, the straight-faced, prog-friendly art punk quintet have expanded their musical dynamic almost exponentially while seemingly whittling down their full-on membership to close to solo-act status. Guitarist/vocalist John A. Stewart receives exclusive songwriting credited for all ten of the disc’s tracks and handles the lion’s share of studio performance duties as well. Mico co-founder Troy Fleishhaker appears behind the kit on half of these tunes, while guitarists Pat May and Todd Harkness take a noticeable timeout this go around lending their fretwork to just three songs each. What hasn’t changed is Mico’s penchant for rich, patient melodic structure and epic arrangements of landscape proportions. Stewart’s between-discs time spent on the road playing bass with now-defunct Australian folk punk label-mates Clann Zu pays influential dividends on a couple of instrumental tracks (of which there are three here), particularly on the dream-like, viola and violin-imbued number "Clock Radio.” Enthusiasts expecting any overt political lessons in the tradition of G7’s proprietary unit Propagandhi ought not to get their hopes up, though. Aside from a few somewhat provocative song titles (like "Against the Empire” and "Art, Death, Art”) and a smattering of apocalyptic lyrical imagery, Stewart tends to play out his politics by way of poetry and metaphor.