Just like a solid mix tape, it’s hard to determine the audience, their tastes and preferences and willingness to listen to whatever it is that you think is good. If you start with a song too rigid, or hard, you risk the chance of quickly alienating your listener. On the opposite end of the spectrum, attempting to build a foundation with a powerless song can have quite the opposite effect. In that case the mix can easily be categorized as something essentially useless; unless used as a sleep inducing opiate. None the less, The Mean Way In avoids this conflict altogether with its opening track “Bad Black Moon;” offering up a truly solid opener. The Mean Way In offers a series of well polished rock songs which characterize just what I thought rock was missing in 2004. My only interjection of criticism would be that the final song “Wings and Bones” completely wipes the slate clean of all things rocking. None the less when reading into the band’s history I had to ask myself, “Self? What exactly is the intended outcome of a band who claims both Deerhoof and The Beach Boys as influences?” Furthermore, this bastard child of seemingly all things hip has played with now-defunct rockers Mclusky. Sufficed to say, until Mclusky, Deerhoof and Brian Wilson presume metaphysical form and spawn a non-screamo EP circa 2004…The Mean Way In will do.
