I wanna say the first time I heard Brooklyn NY’s The Men was back in 2010, ironically around the time I moved back to Vancouver, Canada from Brooklyn. I don’t recall having seen or heard of them when I lived there but that is not surprising. One of the reasons I moved back was that I wasn't going out much. When there’s a million parties, concerts and art openings to choose from every night of the week, it’s easier to decide, let alone save money, to just stay home and watch Lost. And if you're just watching TV most nights, might as well move back to Canada.
Shortly after moving back I started a band with my best friend Dave, Cory from S.T.R.E.E.T.S. and our pal Jake. Pretty sure it was Jake that turned us onto The Men and they might have even inspired the name of the band: Men At Adventure. As far as I can remember (or more from what Dave tells me) we first got into The Men’s third album, Leave Home from 2011. The intro to the first song on Leave Home is longer than most songs we write nowadays so fans of our current outfit might be surprised to hear me say that. On the other hand, the production sounds like it was re-recorded through a completely blown out speaker, like a hardcore band playing Mudhoney or Melvins songs -- maybe how one might describe the band Karp -- so definitely along the lines of stuff we were listening to at the time. Digging through my records I noticed I own the albums The Men put out before and after that one. Immaculada from 2010 is noisier than Leave… while Open Your Heart from 2012 is more psychedelic, droning and soaking wet with reverb. Cool at the time, although the psych thing got a bit overdone and left me wondering if there was a fine line between psych-our-music-is-trippy and psych-our-band-sucks. But hey whatever pays your boat or floats your bills, right?
Skip forward to 2025 and I hadn't thought much, if it all, of The Men in many years. In the meantime The Men had prolifically/consistently been releasing records the whole time. According to their calculation 2025’s Buyer Beware is their 15th album so even if it wasn’t amazing I’d probably still be impressed. The first song “Pony” hits the ground running and doesn’t let up. By the end of track 3, the title track with it’s Steve MacKay inspired sax a la Fun House era Stooges, I’m totally hooked. The Fred Cole-esque lilt of the vocals on “Fire Sermon” give it a desperate relentlessness and I had to check if “Tombstone” wasn’t actually a Dead Moon cover. It is not but this desperation gives it a nothing-left-to-prove similarity. Acid spitting “PO Box 96” sounds more like Dead Boys than anything on their earlier records and clocks in under 2 minutes to boot. “Charm” is a charming sort of electrified acid folk duet featuring Jessica Poplawski of New York City’s The Follies, who’s powerpop rock debut was released last year on Feel It Records. Based on this one, The Follies ought to have Poplawski sing more on their songs. If all this is straying too far from their earlier music, The Men have included a couple stoner sludge tracks toward the end that remind me more of what I remember them sounding like on their earlier releases.
I wonder if the 4 members of The Men and I are on a similar algorithm. I hear hints of some all time favourites like Radiobirdman and Eddie Current Suppression Ring that I wouldn't consider highly common influences, at least outside the Australian punk scene. Engineered by NYC’s Travis Harrison, gotta wonder where he finds the time between engineering, producing and/or mixing all of Guided by Voices’ records since 2017 (which is two or more per year for anyone keeping track). Apologies to the London UK’s Fuzz Club label that this review took so long, the fact that I can listen to the whole album on repeat is a great sign and makes me want to go back thru The Men’s catalog and see what I’ve missed!
