While it is acknowledgeable that The Walrus appears on the record at the start; and that can skew one’s perception… Sir Paul McCartney’s guitarist has some intriguingly similar chord progressions to those of Wings (as well as much of the Walrus’s solo material, understandably). He also has the same rationalization of pop structures, which seems a little biting. But then you do have to acknowledge that Sir P. did write the rule book for much – if not most – of pop music. It’s intriguing though. I mean, he can write a mildly creepy, sort of psychedelic track (incidentally the best on the album, ‘Devil’s Spaceship’) that has the just right guitar slide at the just right time to drive the oddity home in a just Beatles way…
Rusty Anderson does have some independent ventures that included dance-pop instances which Paul hasn’t broached (i.e., ‘Electric Trains’), but these come across in a VERY 90’s way, save for those few instances of uninspired surf-rock.
In any case, the major let-down (from an album that I approached with no expectations) is that the lyrics are generally quite unremarkable. He dwells mostly on drifty emo pennings revolving around self-considerate hindsight, with barely and exception.
As mentioned, the one stand-out is the bizarrely sexy Devil’s Spaceship (“I’m on the devil’s spaceship/ I got some DNA/ It’d be a shame to waste it… I’ve seen my future down your throat/ grab my balls and hit the note/ that’s never there”)
After that, it drives quickly to a point with Undressing Underwater only appeals to an adult ear with the impressive ways that Anderson has taken cues from his mentor. The rest just sounds like shit 15 year old girls would probably be kicking their feet together to as they lay in bed yakking on the phone while they should be doing their homework.
