Mission of Burma OnOffOn

This isn't going to be one of those 'I was there!' reviews; I was a mere ten months old when legendary Boston punk band Mission of Burma unleashed their classic debut, Vs. And back then, arty US punk just wasn't on the agenda; learning to walk just seemed more pressing. There's no chance that my infant ears were even exposed to this music either; my dad's tastes at the time stretched as far as Neil Young, The Doors and Pink Floyd, my big sister's to whatever inane pop was hip at the time. I'm not too sure what my mother was listening to, but odds are it wasn't Secrets or The Ballad of Johnny Burma. The fact is that despite the band's ferocious live shows and phenomenal records (1981's Signals, Calls and Marches EP is almost as powerful as Vs.), very few music fans outside of Massachusetts were even aware of Mission of Burma during their active years. The record industry, it seems, just wasn't ready to embrace the kind of music the band was making.

Since the dust has settled, however, the lasting power of Vs. has secured the band that much-deserved place in the indie-rock history books. Like a post-punk Big Star, Mission of Burma's reputation seems to have grown exponentially since their demise, prompting a whole new generation of fans, myself included, to ponder what might have been.

Oddly enough, I only discovered Mission of Burma a few months back, spurred on by Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, an insightful overview of the US independent scene in the 80s, which features Burma heavily. I managed to get hold of a copy of Rykodisc's 1988 Mission of Burma compilation (which contains Signals, Calls and Marches and Vs. in their entirety) and was immediately taken aback by the band's fusion of anthemic punk rock, jazz, and avant-garde music. I couldn't believe I'd been ignorant of such classics as Academy Fight Song, That's When I Reach For My Revolver and That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate for so long.

However, absorbing a defunct band's back catalogue is always a bittersweet experience; the joy of discovering great music is tainted by the fact that (a) you'll never experience it in a live setting, and (b) aside from the odd suspect bootleg, new material is pretty much out of the question. Fortunately, no sooner had I finished digesting Mission of Burma's twenty-four songs, than I heard the news that some fans had waited twenty-two years for: Mission of Burma, who had already played a handful of live dates since reforming in 2002, were finally ready to release their second studio album. Rules (a) and (b) no longer applied.

Of course, many bands reform for the wrong reasons; there's nothing more soul-destroying than seeing your old favourites whoring themselves round faceless arenas trying to scrape together enough money to pay those expensive rehab bills. Except the 'comeback' album, that is. In the history of music, how many of these inherently bad ideas have actually added something - other than a big, embarrassing blot - to band's catalogue? If you can name ten albums you're doing better than me.

Thankfully, as anyone remotely familiar with the band's ideology or music should already know, Mission of Burma's choice to get back together was not informed by pay cheques, egos, or any of the usual suspects, but by music alone. ONoffON was not recorded with royalty payments in mind, nor was it recorded for fun; Roger Miller, Peter Prescott and Clint Conley stepped into the studio because they felt they had something of worth to document. Make no mistake: it may be a good two decades late, but ONoffON is the follow-up that Vs. has always cried out for. And as a result, it's one of the finest records I've heard all year.

As was the case on Vs., Roger Miller remains Burma's chief songwriter, contributing seven tracks to ONoffON. Of these, album opener The Setup is undoubtedly the most memorable. A fiery blast of anthemic punk rock along the lines of This Is Not A Photograph, it's hardly the sort of thing you'd expect from a middle-aged man with a hearing impairment. Which I guess makes it all the more enjoyable. In contrast, both Falling and Max Ernst's Dream are more intricate offerings, integrating tape manipulation (courtesy of Shellac's Bob Weston) and, in the case of the former, some gorgeous female backing vocals. They're still excellent, though, as are Wounded World (which expertly traverses the gap between the anthemic and the experimental), Into the Fire, Fever Moon, and ONoffON's penultimate track, the brilliantly frantic Playland.

But ONoffON isn't just about Miller. Clint Conley's five and Peter Prescott's three tracks punctuate his offerings superbly, whether offering a change of pace (as in Conley's string-drenched ballad Prepared), a spot of nostalgia (the dreamy What We Really Were) or simply more of the same (Prescott's The Enthusiast). And if side A belongs to Miller's The Setup, Conley's country-tinged Nicotine Bomb is without a doubt the highlight of side B. With the exception of perhaps Prepared, it's ONoffON poppiest moment, and perhaps the band's finest straight-up rocker since That's When I Reach For My Revolver. Yes, it's that good.

Looking back over Burma's career, Peter Prescott once remarked, "We never sucked". Fifteen tracks and one fantastic album later, this memorable quote still rings true. If the name Mission of Burma means anything to you at all, you quite simply must give ONoffON a few hours of your time. Comeback albums just don't get any sweeter any this.