Aural Fixations

I CAN LICK ANY SONOFABITCH IN THE HOUSE
Menace
(In Music We Trust)
The argument's been made that the best rock & roll is about feeling, emotion, catharsis. Craft and polish are all well and good, but ulitmately there better be a throbbing heart under all the machinery, or the effort is tantamount to an empty gesture. In that light, no one feels things deeper or more painfully than Mike D, the leader of Portland, Oregon's I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House. The grooves on the band's third album Menace simply oozes with anger, regret, sadness, contempt, hate and even love. The group thrashes away at his country and blues-derived melodies, with harpist David Lipkind ripping his way through the din like a surgical strike and guitarist Handsome Jon Burbank driving his riffs into the ground with a jackhammer. Over the raging roots rock D howls his anguish, letting everyone within earshot know just how he feels about the way his baby broke his heart, the sacrifices made by those he admires or the mistreatment his country endures at the hands of its leaders. He celebrates the heroism of "Rachel Corrie" and the strength of his grandmother in "Pauline," then turns that same passion towards exorciating a host of religious conservatives in "Westboro Baptist Church." He wipes the heart on his sleeve on the bigger issues as well, testifying to the futility of war in "Dust and Sun" and the confused arrogance of post-9/11 America in the title track. In "Walkin'," "Gone" and "A Good Day to Be a Bad Husband," he relates the hidden fears and lusts of several examples of society's less savory elements without judgment or slack-cutting. It's just a reminder that men like this have feelings too, however damaged. Not content to dwell on the negative, he pledges eternal devotion in "Thousand to One" and proclaims his eagerness to change the world for the better in "I Be Ready." There's little that could be called subtle in D's libretto, but so what? Not everything needs to be drenched in clever innuendo. There's as much, if not more, virtue in being simple and direct as in being poetic, and on Menace I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House is virtuous beyond reproach. Michael Toland [buy it]