Written by: Dave Cantrell

Alright, so, one of the most stubbornly enduring impulses our species has forever carried is the seemingly unshakeable need to name things, all things in every interest or discipline, however grand however minimal. Even the act of naming stuff has a name and in fact a multitude of them but there are few area of study apart from perhaps the sciences that can compete volume-wise with the dizzying array of genres, sub-genres, sub-sub-sub-sub (ad infinitum) genres that have proliferated across the modern music spectrum over the past thirty years or so to such a degree as to not just sustain but overwhelm even the most vigorous doctoral thesis. That established, we turn with an eager delight to the trio mssv wholse third full-length On And On arrived via BIG EGO Records in March – sorry, been busy-ish – and who, delightfully (and more to the point of this opening paragraph), brand themselves as ‘post-genre,’ which will come as a great relief to anyone foolish and/or brave enough to attempt to pigeonhole them.

None of which, it should be said, can come as much of a surprise given the trio of musicians involved in this project. First you’ve got your Mike Baggetta, a guitarist of – as per the New York Times – “slippery efficiency” who’s been impressing the ears and hearts and minds of music fans fortunate enough to discover him for the greater part of this century. Then there’s the near (if not full-on)-legendary percussionist Stephen Hodges who the most astute among you might have noticed in the credits of albums by Tom Waits, Charlie Musselwhite and even David Lynch, plus, there’s someone else, umm, lemme see…oh yeah! Some guy names Mike Watt whose CV begins with the Minutemen and runs through fIREHOSE, Ciccone Youth and even a stint in Flipper among a dozen others. Now that, in the broadest and all-encompassing sense, is a fucking power trio if ever there’s been one.

Opening with the title track – a bit of brazen nonchalance, that – ‘On And On” (both song and record) immediately draws one in to a subtly sinuous blending of attributes that speaks immodest (if suitably unfussy) volumes to the quality of both songcraft and musicianship that these three seem incapable of not bringing to these proceedings, the groove so intuitive you’d be pardoned for thinking they grew up together as triplets. From there it’s a veritable highlight reel of gloriously proficient gems that runs the delirious, ever-intriguing gamut from the moody to the racingly playful to the haunting and, yes, back again.

“Super Dumb,” super loaded up with the tightest power dynamics you’ll likely hear thhe rest of this year (except further down the tracklist maybe) is a study in dense magnificence-made-glorious which is little doubt due to ticking some very welcome Minutemannish bboxes along the way; “On Its Face” pulls into the mysterious with a darkly gauzy grace that’s more or less the equivalent of audio film noir sneaking up behind you seductive shadows and all; and speaking of noirish check “Despair and Hilarity” that despite its more, umm, corporeal concerns, could easily be the soundtrack to your next creeping-in-the-dark midnight adventure before “OK to Change” closes proceedings with a funked-up concision so sharp it might conceivably make your earbuds bleed or whatever you get our drift.

Now, the fact that we’ve not yet even mentioned the power triptych that anchors this album’s crucial center (for the, yes, record, the two 6½-minute heavyweights “Boat Song” and “Careful What You Wish For” could bookend a thesis on accessible – nay, addicctive – heaviosity while the half-as-long instrumental “Pipes” spider webs along a path between the heretofore unexplored possibilities of offhand Zappaisms going for a wordless stroll hand-in-paw with the Art Bears) is in itself an indidcation of the accomplished solidity at play here but sure such mention was technically not required even as we parathetically couldn’t help ourselves.

So, okay, let’s face it: a lot of what you’ve just read suggests what might be termed ‘eccentric superlatives’ but given the trio responsible and their unassailably playful musical instincts that’s not just accurate (if we do say so ourselves) but richly, idiosyncratically deserved. In short, and simply put, On And On is a helluva record.