Heartworm

Because I love lists, I often make mental notes of the best this and thats in film, music, sports, etc. This week I was thinking of the best albums I have ever heard. Of course, all the usual suspects turned up pretty quickly. U2, Prince, David Bowie, Radiohead, blah, blah, blah. But what interested me more were the albums I thought the public missed.

I think everyone who takes popular music seriously has at least one album that they think "that should've been huge!" And while the thought that you're the only one who knows may give you a feeling of greater intimacy with the artist, it's an emotion with diminishing returns. Because in the end, don't we want to look in the eyes of some kindred spirit who "knows" too? Someone who reaffirms what you have been holding tight to for so long?

Which brings me to the 1995 release Heartworm by the undeservedly obscure Irish band Whipping Boy. At the time of the album's release, one would have thought the stars were aligned for a band like Whipping Boy. The record buying public was in a full-on love affair with "alternative" rock. These were the heady days before Creed and Candlebox came along and dried it all up. The pre-release buzz on the band was quite good. Four star reviews were in abundance. Still, they never broke through. And that's a damn shame.

Clearly inspired by the gloom of Joy Division and the Velvet Underground, but as sonically muscular and melodic as early Radiohead and Oasis, Heartworm is one of the ten greatest albums I have ever heard.

Led by thick-voiced crooner, Fearghal McKee, Whipping Boy's Heartworm is an album about failure, regret, and bitterness. You know you're in for it in the first moments when the ironically titled first track "Twinkle," begins with a mournful violin before giving way to a mid-tempo groove and McKee's opening words, "waiting to be bled, turning tricks just like your mother." He later sings "she is the air I breathe, not too cheap for me" just before bursting into the soaring chorus proclaiming, "she is the only one for me, now and always."

Once, when told that his stalker anthem "Every Breath You Take" had become a staple of wedding receptions, Sting replied that he loved pulling a listener in with a strong melody and then "kicking them in the teeth." Well, Heartworm is exactly that kind of album. You can absolutely sing along to every track and on the second or third listen go "what the hell did he just say?"

A great example is the catchiest tune. The shoulda been hit, "When We Were Young." Built upon a gorgeous, ringing guitar line, the song seems to be a positive reminisce on the glories of a misspent youth. But then the refrain hits you with "what might have been" sung bittersweetly by bassist Myles McDonnell. There are no happy endings here.

I don't have any idea of what went on in McKee's childhood, but the songs here are as darkly confessional and self-destructive as anything by Lou Reed, Ian Curtis, or Kurt Cobain for that matter. The whole album is akin to the "kitchen-sink" melodramas that briefly took over British cinema during the late 50's and mid 60's. Richard Burton's great 1958 film, Look Back In Anger seems a particularly apt comparison. In that picture Burton played a man trapped by his working class circumstances and so full of seething anger that he pushes away everyone who might care for him. This theme comes to full fruition on Heartworm's most harrowing track, "We Don't Need Nobody Else." McKee in a half-spoken vocal says "I hit you for the first time today, I didn't mean it, it just happened." Then the damn song spins into a seemingly hopeful chorus of "we don't need nobody else, just you and me." The effect is staggering.

In fact, they seemed to take great pride in having little to no similarities with their fellow Irish band U2. Abandon faith all ye who enter here, the album seems to say. McKee even takes half a shot at Bono's hopefulness and positivity on "We Don't Need Nobody Else." Where McKee states "they built portholes for Bono, so he could gaze out across the bay and sing about mountains, maybe. You are what you own in this land, you can be king and it all depends on the view and what you can see." Withering.

Once again, before I revel too much in the doom and gloom of this record, let me repeat, this album "sounds" fantastic. Massive in fact. Fantastically produced, hook-laden, with great guitar work by axe man Paul Page, it's a shockingly easy listen despite the subject matter. It will however, challenge you like few albums ever have. But isn't that what a great album should do? It sounds great, it's literate, thoughtful, and catchy as all hell. What more could one ask?

Alas, despite all the talent on display, Heartworm never even got a sniff of the mainstream. Perhaps it was too dark, too smart, and mispromoted by a record label (Sony) that had no idea what it had. Maybe, all of the above. The band only produced one more album, the worthy, self-titled, independently released follow up in 2000. A fine album that never even made it to these shores. In 2005 they briefly reunited and played a few shows in Europe. There were rumors of a new album, but that never came to be. In 2009 McKee formed a new band called Fearghal McKee and the Shitty Shit Shits. Self-destructive 'til the end I guess. So, all we're left with are 22 songs of extraordinary music from only two albums. Two albums that almost no one has ever even heard of.

But one of those albums deserves to be regarded as a stone cold masterpiece. As I listen to Heartworm close with the largely spoken word track "A Natural" that finds McKee confronting his own madness and finishes with him singing that "today is not a day for me, today is not for me," it leaves me thinking that this album is the aural equivalent of the great British author, Graham Greene's classic novel The End Of The Affair. A book that ends with the embittered and hopeless protagonist having lost the only one he ever loved saying to the highest of powers:

"O God you've done enough. You've robbed me of enough. I'm too tired and old to learn to love. Leave me alone forever."

This record is every bit as devastating.

Sumo-Pop
October 25, 2009

Here are a couple of youtube links to the two proper Whipping Boy videos I could find.

"When We Were Young"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IXmoMr3ecU

"We Don't Need Nobody Else"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IXmoMr3ecU

As well as a link to allmusic.com's 4 1/2 star review that will allow you to listen to snippets of each song.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:gpfuxqthldae

A great, great thank you goes out to my friend, groomsman, and favorite DJ, Tim Williams, who special ordered Heartworm into the record store we worked at so many years ago. We may be the only two who know Timmy, but then "We Don't Need Nobody Else" do we?