The Machismo's - Original Machismo - Tape (2014)

Labels: self released
Review by: MH

When The Machismo’s rose from the ashes of Jacob’s Mouse in the 90s they put out an album called “My Narghile” and this is five songs that featured on said full length. However, these are different versions of those tracks that were all recorded in the same sessions at the time. Last year’s “Good Things About To Happen” full length could be labelled with tags like experimental, lo-fi and offbeat, and you could say the same here but whereas things were fairly mellow last time around, here they are way more driven and noisy. Soundwise, things are much closer to Jacob’s Mouse’s rhythmic and grooving sound and even though Sam Marsh’s vocals may well be more restrained here than in the majority of his previous band’s output, this set of songs is still pretty rowdy. The instrumental, “Machismo’s Last Stand”, is a grooving barnstormer and, just shy of 20 years later, the band remains hard to pigeonhole. This is a lot more for me than just a nostalgia trip back to my youth and the good news is that there is more to come with a new line-up having already played a few gigs and there are plans in the works for a new 7inch. I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open for more.