Beaver Fuel is a band which many approach with trepidation, largely because the various members are always telling anyone who will listen how shambolic, unlistenable and unpopular they are. This doesn’t stop them gigging their socks off, often stepping into the breach when sappy out-of-towners fail to show, the payoff being that they have earned a reputation as a solid, tight, progressive punk act almost in spite of themselves (they played the Oxford Punt last May, so they have at least one important admirer in town).
Their latest EP, ‘This Allusion’ has plenty of good moments on it, even if the results are a bit uneven. Opener ‘Flopsy’ll be Toast!’, for example, has a rather soulful, bluesy lead guitar intro (it reminds me a little of The Guess Who?), before breaking into a more angular rise-and-fall figure, over which Leigh Alexander sardonically quarter-sings a lyric-as-character-assassination relating to some vacuous ex-girlfriend (or ‘hormonal cyclone’ as he nastily puts it). It’s a bit of a misfire to be honest: the barbs are too esoteric and the vocals are pretty approximate-best just listen to the guitar playing.
More focussed is the self-explanatory ‘Eurovision Political Favour Contest’. Of course, this institution (the gay equivalent of the FA Cup Final) is the softest of soft targets, and the joke has worn thin even for Sir Terry Wogan, but Beaver Fuel unexpectedly squeeze a couple of laughs out of it: think Tom Lehrer fronting Green Day:
“When it’s our turn to award the points, it’s musical merit alone/
No allies, no solidarity, we’re out here on our own/
So maybe we’re just keeping score to see if anyone likes us at all”
I don’t know about you, but I find the evocation of the spirit of Dunkirk allied with that of Millwall FC rather touching as well as amusing. And its great punk rock.
Finishing off, we have the Eric Cartmanesque ‘F*** You, I’ve got Tourettes’, which is as puerile and offensive as it sounds. And quite funny, if you’re in that sort of mood. The song proper is negligible musically, but the instrumental riffing at the end sounds like it could bear the weight of a more elevated subject-maybe they should lease it out to Rage Against the Machine or something.
So, ‘This Allusion’ represents Beaver Fuel in pretty good form. They are no longer a joke band, but are confident enough in themselves to make jokes, some of which actually get off the runway. Although as a frontman Alexander is more Henny Youngman than Henry Rawlins, his puzzled punk shtick is quite fresh: Frank Zappa once asked if humour belonged in music. At their best, Beaver Fuel show that wit can belong in punk.