Although it is nominally led by singer/songwriter/guitarist
Jim McHugh,
Dark Meat list 23 singers and musicians in the credits to their debut album,
Universal Indians, and it often seems as if all of them are singing and playing at the same time. Producer, mixer, and engineer
Asa Leffer (who also gets credits for keyboards and "beercan") creates a
Phil Spector-like Wall of Sound out of a band that boasts basic rock instrumentation plus extra percussionists, backup singers, horns, reeds, a violin, a pedal steel guitar, a bamboo flute, a Celtic harp, a didgeridoo, and "field recordings." Actually, "wall of noise" is more like it much of the time, as the sound picture is filled up in an approximation of an aural tornado -- individual voices and instruments emerge and disappear, but the overall effect is of a giant, swirling mass. Over the top (in more ways than one) is
McHugh, whose singing may remind the listener (depending on age) of
Richard Fariña ('60s),
Richard Hell ('70s), or
Larry Kirwan of
Black 47 ('90s). If those references don't inform, call
McHugh's voice high, adenoidal, whiny, and almost hysterical much of the time. It is not as distinct or as prominent in the mix as those of
Fariña,
Hell, or
Kirwan on their recordings, and it is often accompanied by one or more other singers.
McHugh provides singsong melodies over the musical storm along with highly poetic lyrics that are impassioned but don't make much literal sense. Nor are they easy to make out; without the lyric sheet, one would not know that, for example, "Dead Man" begins, "Well the sun and the sand were a-holdin' on hands/And my heart grayed like a cold chunk of lead/Great green monsters crossed the fluorescent sands/And I counted my friends all for bleedin' or dead." At several points, the dense sound suddenly gives way to individual instruments or voices, if only for relief. The album is dedicated to "the Holy Ghost of
Albert Ayler," which is appropriate, since the horns sometimes take over in a rage of free jazz playing. If
Ayler had ever made a record produced by
Spector, it might have sounded something like this.