The Minus 5
The Minus 5 (Yep Roc)
by Marc Hirsh
The Minus 5
The Minus 5 (Yep
Roc)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in The Boston Globe, March 3, 2006
Scott McCaughey might never get inducted into the
Rock And
Roll Hall Of Fame like his friends Peter Buck (almost certainly within
the next
three years with R.E.M.) or Jeff Tweedy (maybe with Wilco, maybe Uncle
Tupelo,
maybe both), but The Minus 5 finds
them subordinating themselves to McCaughey’s muse, and not for the
first time. Featuring
a fluid cast of collaborators, what began over a decade ago as a side
project during
McCaughey’s down time from the Young Fresh Fellows has become as
regular a
musical outlet as his flagship band. With pedal steel guitar winding
its way
through the loping “Cigarettes Coffee And Booze” and the Garth
Hudson-style
organ of “Twilight Distillery” and “My Life As A Creep,” The
Minus 5 is a bit more rustic than the Fellows, but McCaughey still
has plenty of rock ‘n’ roll to spare, from the punk velocity of “Aw
Shit Man”
to the rattlesnake shaker of the driving “Original Luke.” The album’s
most
affecting song is “Cemetery Row,” a piano ballad in which the elongated
vowels
of the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy step in for McCaughey’s pinched
half-whine. Add
to that a few midtempo Lennonesque numbers and The Minus 5
sounds like Fountains Of Wayne hitting the shy side of
middle age and realizing that it’s time to lose the smirk.