December Birthdays 
Mustard Allegros Badgerdebon
Well. At last. Nine years is a long time to release an album, and here it is, a new/old Mustard Allegro release.
Loosely dubbed a ‘surf’ band; the band would probably insist that they just heard guitars which go TWANG and decided that was the only way they should be played. Maybe it was at this point, the whole charade of each member saying they had a “really good looking cool singer” hired, was finally uncovered for the screaming falsehood it was. Therefore, no vocals, apart from one slightly bemused feline and a secret recording of someone’s tea time, are to be heard. So it’s surf then. Right. That’s the categorising label dealt with. Thank you.
Since this was recorded, the band behind it managed to accidentally change all its members bar one (the drummer), and then, just to rub salt into the wound, broke up without telling each other, and possibly when the bassist accidentally went blind and cut off all the drummer’s fingers.
That, frankly, is to be considered a careless attitude, because, punctuation aside, this is something of a marvel. The album I mean. Not the cartoon made up violence I mention above. Well. It’s short, but that’s the point.
It’s not many albums that put you in mind of various episodes of 1970’s space saga Blake’s 7 without actually sounding like it, or even mentioning it. Maybe it’s the cat sample in ‘Cat Crisis’, or the wooden scenery. It should be noted that the aforementioned space saga had a apostrophe omitting disaster of its own. I still cannot forgive this.
During listening, I am reminded of when I was young and there were all these government short films; whereby cool kids in flares did dangerous things and ended up shouting “TERRY!!!!” at each other in order to avoid calamity on large unwieldy electrical installations. With a kite. You should try this, dear reader, as it is a proven way of avoiding maiming by misadventure.
The strains of the apostrophe terrorising ‘Bradleys New Shoes’ kick things off. I think I located the missing apostrophe at around 1:34 in. Readers may correct me.
It’s hard to ignore the apostrophe disaster avoiding “Theme in 5”. It’s an epic 37 second beast, leading to the wonky tones of “For Once I Was Being Sarcastic”. I tried to ape the latter’s title in that sentence, but was misled by the next song about finances. Every album needs to discuss finances as it is a Very Responsible Thing To Do.
The title of track seven is unfeasibly long, but at least this includes a nod to punctuation, yet, much as I love it, I can’t actually be bothered to type the name. This is because I have not received nearly enough of a bribe. It’s got ‘Hyperdrive’ in the title though. I personally hoped for a G minor chord, but I haven’t worked out yet if my dreams have been dashed.
At eight tracks and under twenty minutes, there are far worse ways of whiling away the afternoon. Conducting casual slaughter of wildlife might be an alternative though.
So. There it is. Mustard Allegro’s lovely old new album. Recorded with way too many microphones. Remixed by someone who was clearly bribed with lovely cakes. Because, this album is like a big pile of lovely little cakes.
You can’t say fairer than that, as everyone loves cakes.
https://mustardallegro.bandcamp.com/album/badgerdebon-ep
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