Invisible Youth PR claims that Mabus create music with elements of "everything from pop and jazz to rock and metal into their innovative." Call me cynical, but whenever I read something like this - describing a band as splicing together every genre under the sun - I can't help but feel skeptical. Just as too many cooks spoil the broth, trying to incorporate so many often-conflicting genres can create something not entirely palatable. As I listened to Cheers, to Doomsday Gloom, however, I found myself struggling to hear this eclectic array of influences. While Mabus might think it's cool to tout themselves as a "triumphantly glum jazz metal beast," jumbling together genre buzz-words won't make their music any more diverse or, more importantly, of higher quality.
Cheers, to Doomsday Gloom is a hectic, flailing spastic assault on the senses that doesn't seem to know who it is, where it's going, or why it's even here in the first place. Only when it calms down, worn out by its own attention-deficit mania, is the album enjoyable. The down-tempo sleaze of "Swingin' in Me Satterlee Grove" and melodic first-half of "No More Tricks, No More Limbs" are lone islands of intrigue in a sea of confusion. Sadly, these moments of clarity are all too flitting and the racketeers soon veer back into mindless chaos.
For Mabus, making music is apparently "a nice escape from throwing dead animals at cars, fishing, boredom, and converting powder coffee creamer into gigantic inferno balls." Imagine this album as the audio equivalent of just that - a series of ultimately pointless pursuits that you'd have to be tremendously bored (not to mention mentally disturbed) to enjoy or invest any time into. You might think it's big and cool at the time, but believe me when I say that you are going to look back on those moments and cringe. I usually try to conclude my reviews with a "for fans of" recommendation, but I wouldn't really wish Cheers, to Doomsday Gloom on anyone. I can't bring myself to be that cruel.
