How come Irish musicians don’t make good metal bands? Maybe it’s that they’ve always had a problem with the kind of exhibitionism that distinguishes the Queens or The Transplants or the agitprop pitbullying of System Of A Down or Rage Against The Machine. Domestic hard rockers tend to take refuge in the workmanlike – Music Maker bargain basement moves. The sound of men working on the chain gang.
Mike Got Spiked are a quartet well schooled in the forge-work of the form. The rhythm section is nimble and quick, and singer Gavin McGuire has a fair set of lungs on him. They frequently carry off tricky muscle-funk licks and Rancid-like ska-metal hybrids with handbrake turn metre shifts (‘To Have You Here’, ‘Teen Idol’, ‘Find Yourself’) not to mention the odd muso fusion fuckabout (‘5 Second Heaven’, ‘All You Need’), although the songs invariably go scurrying back to the power chords and layered harmonies of a Linkin Park chorus. More worryingly, they have little to say, and no artful way of saying it. Here’s one band who really didn’t need to print the lyrics on the sleeve, especially when the opening tune, ‘A Pointless Address’, offers their opponents ammunition like “Mediocrity is the best you can hope for/You’ll end up just like all who’ve come before.”
Caveat Emptor brims over with spot-on rock school chops, but even peers like the Chili Peppers had a well-honed pop sensibility, while Faith No More had Mike Patton and Primus had an advanced sense of Zappa scatology. The closest MGS come to hitting the spot is a tune like ‘Yuppie Puppet Epiphany’, Trent Reznor doing ‘Smooth Criminal’. What they need to do next is tear up the rulebook, read a few graphic novels, acquire a DVD collection, visit some art galleries and generally get weird on our carcasses.