Album Review: Luke Haines - "Setting The Dogs On The Post-Punk Postman"

 

I have to be honest, my relationship with Luke Haines' music over the past 25 years or so has been a bit of an on-off one. Having initially discovered his first band the Auteurs via their almost-hit Lenny Valentino, still a brilliant song all these years later, the band were arguably out there among the very first Britpop bands only for Haines to recoil in disgust at the monster he'd created and quickly set the Auteurs' controls to somewhere else altogether. Apart from a brief return to the hit parade with Black Box Recorder (a band who I have to be honest, I found a bit too clever-clever for my liking) and a much-acclaimed autobiography a few years ago, he's kind of kept his head just below the waves in the intervening years.

Setting The Dogs On The Post Punk Postman is, to be honest, unlikely to really change that but you suspect that's just the way Haines likes it. What is important though is that it's a good album full of the sort of humour and spite that marks out all of his best stuff. Whether he's skewering hippies on Never Going Back To Liverpool or writing sinister whimsical odes to failed historical regimes on Ex Stasi Spy and U-Boat Baby. Haines' trademark dry sense of humour is at work here as evidenced on the cheekily filthy I Just Want To Be Buried

The band that this album reminds me of the most actually is '80s lo-fi eccentrics the Television Personalities as it dips its toe into everything from folky whimsy (When I Owned The Scarecrow, Landscape Gardening) through atonal punky guitars (Two Japanese Freaks Talking About Mao And Nixon) to sinister almost trip-hop psychedelia (the deliciously ominous title track and Yes Mr Pumpkin which even features the talents of Julian Barratt on its spoken word section).

As I say, I don't foresee this winning Haines many floating casual fans but I suspect that's probably the last thing the cantankerous old git would want anyway. Take it for what it is and you'll find a varied, fascinating and occasionally frightening set of songs showing the sort of wilful disregard of pigeonholing your sound and rules in general that puts a lot of his younger competition to shame. Certainly his fans, and those with a love of enjoyably weird music in general, will find much to enjoy here.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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