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Testing one, two, three. . .
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If Mission of Burma acted like most reunited bands, they’d have probably done a high-profile tour, quickly thrown together a new album, and already be broken up again by now. Instead, they’re nearly two years into the reunion and still taking things slow. They’ve done a few batches of gigs in different areas, taken months off in between, gradually worked new songs into their sets, and never come out and said whether they were reuniting for keeps. Yet things have progressed to the point where the band are currently in the studio, recording their first new album since 1982. Which was the impetus for the two gigs Burma played last weekend — Friday night at Pearl Street in Northampton, and Saturday at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence. As was clear from the Lupo’s set, which featured a dozen new tunes (plus a newly minted cover, the Dils’ "Class War"), this was a chance for the band to shore up the new material before committing it to tape. Adding to a stellar body of work after 20-plus years is tricky business, and it’s too soon to tell if there’s another "Academy Fight Song" or "Einstein’s Day" among the new tunes. But there are a few obvious contenders. Saturday night, two of the songs stood out — bassist Clint Conley’s "What We Really Were" (with one of the prettiest chorus hooks in the band’s history) and guitarist Roger Miller’s churning "Wounded World." Those also happen to be the two new tunes they’ve been playing at nearly every show since they reunited — proof that it takes a few listens before the brilliance of a Burma song fully sinks in. Same as it ever was. And, as has always been the case, Burma tunes are intensely melodic one minute, and just as intensely dense and complex the next. One of Conley’s other tunes featured just two guitars and vocal harmonies, with no bass or drums. It was the one gentle moment in an amped-up, two-hour-plus performance. Miller’s "Fever Moon" and drummer Peter Prescott’s "Absent Mind" both sported enough melodic ideas for two or three songs — and the latter doesn’t introduce its hook until three-quarters of the way through. The band sounded more assured than they did in earlier reunion shows, taking their old songs through more improvisational twists and turns. Prescott was especially good at pulling the rhythms apart, veering toward chaos, and then crashing back in again. Miller whipped off a gorgeous solo on "Einstein’s Day" and even did some Pete Townshend windmills during "That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate." Tape-looper Bob Weston (a former Volcano Suns bandmate of Prescott’s who’ll be producing the new album) caught the band off-guard a few times by weaving sped-up and slowed-down vocals into the instrumental breaks. Time will tell if they can capture all that in the studio as well as they did in 1982, but the raw material is definitely there.
BY BRETT MILANO
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