Wussy
Left for Dead
(Shake It, 2007)

The sophomore slump. This old critics’ phrase can be just as easily applied to bands as it can to its intended target: records. Following one great band with another is about as easy for musicians as releasing a masterpiece on the heels of another masterpiece. This is to say, it ain’t easy. Putting together a new combo is fraught with many of the same challenges as writing/recording an album: having something to say, coming up with enough fresh ideas, finding sympathetic musical cohorts, and creating a sum that’s better than all its parts. The vast majority of rockers are simply not able to do it.

A list of failed second bands is much easier to come up with than a list of smash successes: Audioslave? A pale approximation of Rage. The Jicks? Not remotely in the same league as Pavement. Electronic? Not even a Jones to the Smiths. Tuatara? Yeah, right. Foos? No Nirvana. It does occur, though. There have been a few bands that are actually better than their musician’s previous efforts: Sacrilege perhaps, but I prefer Sugar to Hüsker Dü. Crooked Fingers is arguably as good as or better than Archers of Loaf. Even though I’m more of a Jay Farrar guy, I’d agree that Summer Teeth is better than any single Uncle Tupelo release.

Into the better-than-its-predecessor camp resides Wussy. Chuck Cleaver made some good records as the singer/guitar player for the Ass Ponys, but never a great one. Funeral Dress, the debut by his follow-up group, Wussy, was a great record. Eminent critic Robert Christgau called its 11 songs “about perfect,” and while maybe not that, they were astonishingly great and deserved placement on year-end best-of lists. (Funeral Dress made a few, especially in the band’s native Ohio, but it was virtually ignored in the biggies: Pitchfork, Spin, Rolling Stone, etc.—apparently it didn’t have enough beats or rhymes for those outlets.)

And now here comes Wussy trying to top it with their cheerfully titled sophomore record: Left for Dead. There’s no slumping here. Again, Cleaver and songwriting cohort Lisa Walker have put together 11 songs (plus one) of twangy, occasionally countrified, sometimes noisy, indie pop par excellence. The overall sound is reminiscent of May I Sing With Me-era Yo La Tengo or, on Walker-sung songs like “Rigor Mortis”, the Heartless Bastards. Imagine stumbling into an Ohio dive that no one else knows about and finding the best bar band ever on stage. An extraordinarily literate bar band and one that’s not afraid to take risks, to bring out the random set of bells or vibraphone or even French horn. But still a band that’s rooted in the two guitars, bass, drums, post-blues of the bar band tradition. That’s what you have here. Cleaver and Walker may be the best guy/girl combo in this vein since John Doe and Exene.

The songs on Left For Dead are a little more optimistic and less despairing than those on Funeral Dress, but they still explore themes of loss and longing. In “Sun Giant Says Hey” things start out pleasantly with said giant lifting you “Up above the rain to where the sun is always out,” but it ends with “It’s a lonely lonely lonely lonely life.” Cleaver has always had a knack for writing clever songs filled with enough whimsy and truisms to be amusing without falling into the black hole of the joke song and he does so again on “God’s Camaro.” “Washing God’s Camaro with my favorite shirt / There’s silver in the bird shit and there are / Diamonds in the dirt.” And he finds a fine foil in Walker who is just as adept at looking at relationships, reminiscing about happiness past.

Walker plays a larger role on this record. Songwriting duties were largely split on Funeral Dress and here she gets many more credits, handling the majority of lead vocals. This isn’t necessarily a good thing—Funeral Dress was pretty phenomenal—but it’s not bad either. “Jonah”, a Walker number, is about as good as anything the band has done yet.

Overall, Left for Dead is a fine successor to an extraordinary debut; walking down the same path, this band of seasoned vets continues to improve upon their own legacy. Hopefully more people will notice this time.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]