Lines Redacted

Leeds four-piece Mush continue to direct their loose, angular, post-punk-injected grievances at the unsavory sociopolitical landscape on their second album, Lines Redacted. Following their full-length debut, 2020s 3D Routine, by a year, it returns that albums Lee Childs to the producers chair as well as matching its relatively generous 12 tracks. The album opens with Drink the Bleach, a midtempo song whose chorus repeats its unison guitar and one-note-at-a-time keyboard line alongside the words so drink the bleach in choruses -- delivered by the idiosyncratic, Fred Schneider-reminiscent Dan Hyndman -- that only slightly distinguish themselves from the verses. Many of the songs follow this formula, though the band do change up the pace on entries including the punkier, urgent B2BCDA, the lively Blunt Instrument, which offers a much-distorted chorus, and, midway through, an atypically relaxed groove materializes on Seven Trumpets. Elsewhere, Morf is a distortion-filled instrumental, while the jauntier Bots! offers contrastingly low, grungy guitar tones and sauntering rhythms. The set closes with Lines Discontinued, which leaves listeners on an over-seven-minute, shape-shifting rumination. Ultimately, Lines Redacted drive homes the feeling of dissatisfaction while, like a Ramones under the influence, locking into an admirably irreverent, distinctive persona. ~ Marcy Donelson