Good ‘ol Shunt. He don’t cotton, cornhole, cribkill, corroborate, or even comingle (save for Sam “Double Douche” Elliott). Not until now, that is! Along with fellow shitkickers Mutt Taylor, Cubby Lauderbourne, and Jimmy Blades, Shunt McGuppin is steppin’ up to the killfloor lamplight of collabo co-minglin’ and he wants — nay — demands y’all come along. He’s humped his fair share and shagged ass with stained underwear across these great states, and now he’s come home. Or here. To this. “This” being a short, sweet, 11-song sojourn through truckin’, fuckin’, and self-imposed emasculation triangles (‘mongst other things).
I imagine there won’t be much indienet press for this holiest of holyspirited collabo. Despite playboy lizzard Bill Marz’s attempt to make the world “politically incorrect,” we’re all still stuck in “real time” as our dirtstirrin peckers rise and fall, rise and fall. Ain’t much market for hard drinkin’, pink stinkin’, chip baggin’, trucknut draggin’, rust belt barfin’, rodea clown rapin’, muffler suckin’, beef bucklin’ jams in the world of “vaporwave” (whate’er the fuck that might be). But here I am, and here you are, and is that the faint tinglin’ of a smile on your talkhole? I thought it might be! Well, listen up and prepare for yer lightenuptials!
Much like how many a critic longs to be out there doing the sort of things he’s writing about (guilty as charged!), I think it’s safe to say a fair share of satirists dream of inhabiting the lives of the people they are poking fun at. Despite the over-the-top nature of The Journeymen’s lyrics on Mount Us More, there’s a curious restraint to these tunes. The performances are so spot-on “authentic” one can almost forget they’re listening to a comedy record. As with the relentlessly funny Superego podcast (whose Jeremy Carter, Matt Gourley, Matt McConville, and Jeff Crocker serve as the men behind the men), there’s a contagious air of fun, whatever-works-style riffing. Only this time around there isn’t a run-into-the-ground glee so much as a bloviated, winking tribute to popular country music and its myriad of cliches.
The album would be slight if it weren’t so charming, and quaint if it weren’t so crassly funny. Much like Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats, there’s equal attention paid to clever turns of phrase as there is to blunt obscenity. Both records are full of joyously juvenile, proudly unsubtle songs, but The Journeymen manage to be more endearing in their decidedly jokier context. There may be an affinity with the genre, but there’s never the sense that it’s anything but an extended goof. No country prerequisites are necessary to enjoy Mount Us More, but an appreciation of dumb pop music, absurdity, and sexual buffoonery wouldn’t hurt none.
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