Maccogallo is a 7 piece rock band out of Indianapolis, Indiana that whips up a slurry of sounds that feels punk and grungy at the same time. Their 5 track EP "Micromegas" (just released early in October) is as inspired as it is feral and the perfect antidote for listening to Greta Van Fleet's "Anthem Of The Peaceful Army" album because the young bloods in Maccogallo actually make music that is inspired and exquisitely raw. Take the track Pissed Lightning that starts off like a mid tempo 90 college radio new wave song and then ramps up. The sound is youthful garage rock with grunge underpinnings and maybe about the age ole lack of understanding between parents and their offspring "your mother confesses her weakness her guesses... your father he stresses about boys in dresses." Bedbugs with jangly strident mid tempo guitars and John Dwyer (The Oh Sees) like yelps feels like a song in disarray. Midway through a kind of broken trumpet plays some lead lines twisting the track into indie fare or Broadway punk (just a bit) but I like the surprise of it all. Maybe my favorite track on the EP, Beehive has a proto punk (1978) heart with a patina of grunge smeared all over it. The emotional tone, "caught in green, I'm ceasing like apnea" feels like the suffocation of youth or the trials and tribulations there of. It is something we have all felt. Trough is more of a transition or interlude and is barely over a minute long. You can hear words but not make them out. The last track Nine Billion Faced Dice may or may not borrow a prog from a previous track or maybe turns that prog inside out but this song feels thoroughly drenched in a grunge tones with lyrics that feel like stream of consciousness ramblings or the babble of a fever dream. The song is a slow burn and then long crescendo that in the end feels like avant garde grunge punk (either meaningless or meaningful) but the kind of song a crowd can sway to and feel anyway they want... disenchanted, hopeless or defiant. Maccogallo are Lilly, Sean, Isabelle, Jackson, Griffin, Zach and Peyton and (as far as I can tell) there are boy / girl vocals here (mostly boy) and I like the changing flavor this gives.
In the end, Micromegas stands as a surprising little piece of inspired punk grunge songs with lyrical content that is like a Rorschach test which (for me) are the best kinds of words. The boys and girls seem to sink into the songs like they feel them for whatever they are. This is the stuff of passion, perfectly imperfect musical endeavors and the stuff of promise too. On their Bandcamp the band states that they are : "a band that someday won't be a band" and while all the best bands that I have loved have expiration dates let's hope Maccogallo's is far, far in the future.
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Robb Donker
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