3 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: John Vernon Forbes, James Becker (track 8), Jim Bellmore & John Vernon Forbers (track 9)

“Years in the making,” reads the media copy on this – which is referenced in the album title: Tijuana Hercules’ 2021 “Mudslod & The Singles” is a compilation of the group’s 2013 Mudslod EP, and then bits and bobs released between singles and “various endeavors”, with a slew of guests popping up to bolster John Vernon Forbes’ six-person junk-rock / blues band.

Forbes has been operating as Tijuana since the early 00s, but is most likely recognizable to Skin Graft Records fans from his time in Mount Shasta, which certainly reflects TH’s outre blues stylings, albeit mixed with no-wave punk. TH is a much more smoothed out take on that, though – sonically, lyrically – bringing things much closer to actual blues, with a bit of Bo Diddley boogy and Jay Hawkins’ weirdness. The no-wave stuff is there in the malaise: combine the inherent energy of those two references with some good ol’ fashioned disaffection, and you’re pretty close to what’s on display here.

Given the range of sources for the tracks, and all the extra players, perhaps the fate of compilations of being inherently scattered would come into play, but therein we discover part of the band’s uniqueness: that they always kind of sound the same. We have some ambient / atmospheric bookends, and tracks that lean more towards rock or angularity, but regardless, the core, laidback riffage and sneer-tickled singing dominates everything. You bob your head but don’t really absorb; all the instrumentation is heard – junk percussion, keys, horns – but not really differentiated, with Forbes’ engineering (on most of the songs) putting us on an even keel, much like Forbes’ artwork, adorning the disc, has plenty of quirk, but lacks any sense of foreground / background. I would’ve loved to hear a producer like Brian Deck manage this, really sharpening the edges.

…But that’s not the intent, to have edge. I think the non-stop flow is part of the vibe, and it is an appreciably inoffensive corner of the Skin Graft-verse, hanging out with Denison Kimball Trio, punk bona fides showing as worn stickers on guitar cases while these wizened no-wave rock statesmen just kinda do their thing.