Label: Merge Records

Web site: portastatic.com

Release Date: October, 2006

Portastatic - Be Still Please
Matthew Ralph

It was only a matter of time before Mac McCaughan would drift away from the punk rock days in Superchunk and focus more attention on a side project under which he has released a slew of songs since 1993.

His second full-length in as many years continues to keep indie-rock's elder statesman from North Carolina on the circuit and in the review section of hipster magazines and Web sites.

A mix of orchestrated beauty and blue collar attitude,"Be Still Please" in many ways suits the now grown-up Superchunk audience. It's mellow at times and it incorporates a lot of instrumentation — piano, violin, etc., but it's anything but easy listening.

In fact, the snarl in Mac's voice made this disc more of an acquired taste for this long-time Portastatic fan.

Where the early releases were lo-fi and mellow, Mac's voice often nostalgic and grown-up in its approach, this latest offering gives a big old middle finger to sentimentality.

On "Getting Saved", Mac follows a pretty interplay between piano, violin and percussion with the line, "It was my birthday I'm miserable so I decided to freak you out." Listening to this song, it's hard not to picture a guy on TV in a bad suit and tie calling people forward to get saved and Mac sitting in a hotel room not buying it writing this song.

The follow-up is a song, "You Blanks", with one of the greatest bitter lines of the year. A catchy up-beat number, the song sounds like it is spinning things more in a glass half-full direction until the line comes in, "All my songs used to end the same way, everything's going to be okay, you f---ers make that impossible to say."

Tongue still firmly planted in cheek, Mac evokes images of young soldiers coming home in flag-draped coffins from Iraq in "Like A Pearl," a stripped down acoustic guitar-heavy tune that brings to mind a lot of his earlier material.

A biting commentary about "this culture" and the "black heart of this world," Mac seems to be addressing President Bush directly when he sings, "This is every drop of blood in a war you sold for cash. This is every awkward teenage boy never coming back. There's a sword hanging over your head, dull and falling fast. Optimism is a shining thing and we're easy to distract."

One of the most important songs Mac has ever penned, this song begs to be placed on year-end lists and on mix CD's. It also highlights another fine effort for a project that those of us hardcore Portastatic fans are pleased and yes, even optimistic, is no longer a side hobby.

posted [01.08.07]

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