Oar On, Penelope!

The last time we heard from the Minus 5, the news wasnt entirely good. Leader Scott McCaughey suffered a major stroke in 2017, and in 2019, he released Stroke Manor, an album that was primarily written while he was in the hospital and struggling to teach his brain how to communicate again. While McCaughey had recovered enough to record the LP, it did invite the question of whether this great rock & roll heart was going to be functioning at full force in the future. The worries proved to be groundless, as McCaughey was recording and touring again before long with the Baseball Project, the No Ones, and the Young Fresh Fellows, and 2025s Oar On, Penelope!, the first proper Minus 5 album since Stroke Manor, is a thoroughly pleasing example of what he does best. As always, the Minus 5 is McCaughey and however many of his friends are on hand to go into the studio, and this time out, along with his usual sidekick Peter Buck on bass and 12-string guitar, the group features his Young Fresh Fellows bandmate Kurt Bloch on guitar, Baseball Project drummer Linda Pitmon, and Bangle Debbi Peterson on vocals, while Waxahatchee drummer Spencer Tweedy sits in on two tunes and Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood lends backing vocals to a pair of tracks. The real surprise on Oar On, Penelope!, however, is Ed Stasium, the producer and engineer whose long resume includes working with the Ramones, Living Colour, Talking Heads, the Smithereens, the Hoodoo Gurus, the Long Ryders, and many, many more. Stasium mixed the album as well as adding occasional percussion overdubs, and thanks to him this is one of the best-sounding LPs McCaughey has released to date. While McCaughey is a more than capable producer, with Stasiums help this music has a full-bodied strength and sense of detail that makes the most of McCaugheys rock moves, and adds a welcome lift to the abundant pop hooks. The opening track, "Words & Birds," is a 60s-style stormer with plenty of guitar, "Death the Bludgeoner" is a hard-charging rocker with great harmonies for seasoning, "I Dont Want to Hate Anyone" is pensive and passionate at the same time, and "The Garden of Arden" makes inspired use of the fuzzbox. Moody numbers like "Bison Queen" connect just as well as the party-starters, and "We Shall Not Be Released" sounds like it could have made the cut on Nuggets, and reads smarter than you might expect. Scott McCaughey is a bit too playfully eccentric to be a star, but hes a hero and inspiration to plenty of folks who love rock & roll, and Oar On, Penelope! is the sort of spontaneously joyous record that reminds us its a great thing hes still with us and making music. He more than gets by with a little help from his friends. ~ Mark Deming