Tacocat

Like most creatives (probably not Ted Nugent), Seattle’s Tacocat, reacted and responded to real-life bully-boy-brat Biff Tannen being (s)elected as POTUS in 2016 by crafting and voicing dissent in an artistic format. Fourth album, ‘This mess is a place’ is the quartet’s first for Sub Pop and delights in dancing and romancing in the face of the perverse adversity and adverse perversity that pervades across the globe.

Thematically uplifting these songs range from believing is perceiving, there’s forever hope even when you’re on the ropes, pets won’t let you down -unlike their owners - (‘Little Friend’), and a warning to be aware or beware.

Illusion equals delusion on opener ‘Hologram’ as the group chime the sound advice ‘just remember if you can, power is a hologram’. Power’s strictures/structures only restrict and inhibit if you choose to respect and adhere to them. Dreaming big and thinking out loud (whilst you’re allowed) are the antidote to a revolution of the self. Musically it’s akin to a supergroup comprised of the powerpop smarts of Strawberry Switchblade and Voice of the Beehive. In a similar vein the optimistic ‘New World’ displays some superlative Buzzcockian guitars and Pete Shelley melodising.

‘The Joke of Life’ is the ultimate punchline: as death awaits to laugh in your face, live life while you can. ‘Rose Colored Sky’ posits the eternal question how can we delete the elite? a pot-shotting pop-shot at the 1%, the privileged, hereditary hierarchies that continue to pillage and take to preserve their pampered existence(s). A wakeup call to arms for all those who remain stuck on the ‘battleground’, but a cry to keep looking up.

‘Crystal Ball’ addresses the narcotising effects of the mass media news cycle, the repetitive reportage where the chase for content only breeds dissonance and discontent: ‘we spent these past few days living in a dull haze, almost lost the power to just be mad’, the ‘almost’ is crucial, it’s never too late to snap out of the trance.

These are ten glorious technicolour Day-glo protest songs, personally political and politically personal, fighting fire with ire and partying like it’s Two-Zero-One-Nine.