Album Review: Miracle Legion - Annulment
I get the impression that Mark Mulcahy doesn’t like the Twin
Cities.
But maybe I’m wrong.
It seems like he should. In the late 80s, he and Miracle
Legion guitarist Ray Neal recorded what is arguably the band’s finest album, Me and Mr. Ray, at Prince’s Paisley Park
studios. So you’d think that dude would want to come back through this way and
play a show or two.
But no.
Mulcahy came out of musical seclusion with his 2013 solo effort; the following year, he reformed his fictional band Polaris for their
first ever tour. Last year, much to everyone’s surprise, the beloved but always
underappreciated Miracle Legion reunited for a string of live dates in support
of the reissue of their final album.
Miracle Legion are out on the final leg (and last, ever) of
their reunion tour, and in conjunction with those shows, as well as with
Mulcahy’s own new solo effort due out later this month, the band has released a
massive live album. A sprawling 25 tracks, Annulment
plays like a greatest hits collection for the band, pulling material from their
debut EP, as well as their four studio albums. Recorded mostly in Maquoketa,
Iowa (with a few additional recorded in Brooklyn), the double album captures
the raw and at times visceral urgency with which these songs were originally
committed to tape over 30 years ago.
Opening with the slow burning build of “Country Boy,”
Mulcahy and company dip back and forth between deep cuts in the band’s canon
and what could be considered “fan favorites,” or at least the band’s most
accessible material: so yes, “Mr. Mingo,” “Even Better,” “The Backyard,” and
“All For The Best” are all included in the set, as well as Portrait of A Damaged Family’s peppy “Madison Park.”
Always in the shadow of the similarly sounding, jangly college
rock of R.E.M., Miracle Legion’s ramshackle, unpolished, and partially unhinged
aesthetic was part of their charm and what made separated them from other bands
of this period. In a live setting, reuniting after 20 years of dormancy, they
aren’t looking for perfection on stage, so listeners shouldn’t be expecting
that from Annulment. Miracle Legion,
circa 2016, aren’t terrible live, but there is a very loose and free wheeling
atmosphere in these songs—specifically in the material recorded in Iowa. Sometimes
it sounds like the song is on the verge of falling part. Occasionally it seems
like it does, when the pacing and rhythm feels like it gets a little off in
“Even Better” or in “Ladies From Town.”
Perhaps it has something to do with the setting: the band
performed at the Codfish Hollow barn, which appears to be a very relaxed venue.
There is a noticeable difference in tightness in the band when you compare this
material with the few songs recorded in Brooklyn at The Bell House.
Maybe I should just lighten up and enjoy the sound of a band
that sounds like they are having fun performing old songs.
It becomes more apparent on Annulment than on any of their studio albums just how dark some of
Miracle Legion’s songs are—and, wisely so, the band contrasts those darker
sounding tracks (“Storyteller” comes to mind right away as does the devastating
“You’re The One Lee” presented here in a stripped down arrangement) with
lighter and slightly more whimsical moments, like “I Wish I Was Danny Kaye.”
In his earlier days as a songwriter, Mulcahy hadn’t quite
tapped into the bittersweet nostalgia that he was able to capture in the songs
he wrote for Polaris’ single album, the soundtrack to “The Adventures of Pete and Pete,” though you can hear glimmers of it in “And Then” and “Say Hello.”
Structurally, it is a tad bit puzzling that what is
perceived to be a full concert from the band (including an encore) concludes,
then four additional tracks are tacked on to the end of that—however, the
Brooklyn material does include the cacophonic “Closer to The Wall” and the
charm of “Snacks and Candy.”
Annulment is, at
its core, a service to fans of the band—both from their original run in the
1980s and 90s, to those who found the band later on through Mulcahy’s solo
work, or through Polaris. It’s probably not the kind of record that is going to
win Miracle Legion a plethora of new listeners, but for those who may be
discovering the band for the first time, it’s a good way to get exposed to the
depth of the band’s canon.
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