Mike McClatchey and Lament Cityscape
Roasted By Dark Juan
Now then, fiends, I am being fuelled by a surfeit of both petty, and rather less than petty rage of late. Not content with having to deal with the fact that the UK now has to deal with a woman who makes the animated bag of rancid custard that was our ex-prime minister seem like a fucking genius, Brexit making the simplest tasks more time consuming than the fucking mountain of paperwork that wrangling young people generates on a daily basis, and a certain Eastern leader deciding that they would take a leaf out of colonial Britain’s playbook and indulge in a bit of good old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy in a nation next door, I am fizzing with fury, so this is obviously an EXCELLENT time to have a bash at an American man who is on another, distant continent and CAN’T ACTUALLY GET HOLD OF ME TO EXACT PHYSICAL REVENGE…
So, Lament Cityscape. A musical endeavour created by a man so dour he could be a Buckfast-soaked vagrant from the arse end of Glasgow faced with an Englishman in Mike McClatchey, from a country that can’t even decide how to pronounce Spokane correctly, Lament Cityscape is a band that could only be enjoyed by people to whom music has no meaning. Appearing to be composed mainly of McClatchey chucking a load of pots and pans down some stone stairs repeatedly and recording the results before giving them incredibly pretentious titles like ‘A Rusting Moth’, Lament Cityscape occupy a kind of dark continuum that permits no light to enter, instead being a shadowy world of surprising descents of cast-iron kitchenware down barely visible stairways and some mad bastard chucking steel ladders about in an echoey warehouse. So, also like the rougher ends of Glasgow. Also, moths don’t fucking rust, Mike. They are organic and therefore will decompose naturally, or undergo the adipocere change if conditions are right for it. Happy to be of service…
Yes, dour is a perfect metaphor for Mike McClatchey, who has not been known to smile since at least 1993, and for whom delight, and probably orgasm, is undetectable via facial expression. Clearly taking his inspiration from Mount Rushmore, he is indeed craggy of countenance and Dark Juan is concerned that he is actually wearing the tanned face of a murder victim of his, rather than his OWN FACE, such is the blank-eyed immobility of his countenance. His outlook on life is so grim that the accidental running over of an angelic, curly blonde-haired toddler represents an uptick in his general mood. The last time any discernible emotion was detected in Mike McClatchey, there were a number of major earthquakes as fault lines fractured when he moved his face a mere three millimetres. He is the kind of man that, when faced with a major, life-changing disaster, will raise his eyebrow less than a centimetre and mutter something unspeakably horrible sotto-voce and go and hurl a bag full of rusting moths down the nearest fire-escape and record the resulting cacophony and call it music, to the horror and consternation of metal lepidopterists everywhere. And then will add the sounds of some explosions and possibly a toilet flushing before barking some non-linear words over it before thinking, “Fuck it, there’s the opening single of the next record.”
And then name the album something like “The Endlessly Grey And Depressing Wet” which clearly proves that he has visited the North West of England at some point in his life, which frankly is depressing enough for anyone.
Lament Cityscape is regarded as an Industrial band. Throbbing Gristle were an Industrial band and they sounded like someone had really fucked up in the studio and had just recorded the commercial abattoir next door. Lament Cityscape are not like this.
Lament Cityscape sounds like someone putting up a garden shed REALLY quickly.
To conclude this entirely unjustified attack on an artist and his art then – If you want to hear music that sounds like the gearbox of a Challenger main battle tank giving up the ghost while it is travelling at speed, conceived and performed by a man for whom any emotion besides bleak, morbid or furious was purged via unspeakable means many years ago and, and I cannot stress this enough, is quite possibly a serial killer who DOES NOT WEAR HIS OWN FACE, I thoroughly recommend Lament Cityscape to your attention. Otherwise avoid it and him. He’s quite clearly fucking dangerously unhinged.
Disclaimer time, American legal enthusiasts and any people with no sense of humour who have taken the previous ranting seriously!!!!
This “piece” of “descriptive” writing was written with the full knowledge and permission of Mike McClatchey and has his blessing. This might change when he actually reads it online. For the record, however, I am proud to call Mike McClatchey a personal friend (this also might change after he reads this piece), a gentleman of the highest calibre and a superb musician. Also for the record, Dark Juan is a rabid and enthusiastic fan of Lament Cityscape and their vastly superior Industrial music. I commend every record the band has made to your attention for they are truly superb. Good evening.
Send any legal enquiries to Beth “I’ve Got One Fist Of Iron, And One Fist Of Steel, If The Left One Don’t Get You, The Right One Will” Jones, Ever-Metal.com Headquarters, 3rd Builders Skip on the left, Ystad Ddiwydiannol, Wrecsam, Gogledd Cymru.
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