Winning '11: 17 - The Indelicates

The Indelicates - David Koresh Superstar

There are issues which are unique to this album among this year’s offerings. Chiefly: is it right to produce a concept album, verging on being a musical, with moments of comedy as well as tragedy, about real events in which real people died?

Certainly you can see why they felt it was necessary, in that the couldn’t-make-it-up details of the progression of the story are a crucial part in illustrating the mental state of its central character and how it gets to the tragic ending that it does. The accompanying lyrics booklet complete with annotations and explanations makes clear that the band thought long and hard about every line on the album and in many cases were very careful not to present a one sided view of the story where they found the actual facts to be unclear. In the chaos of "Something Goin' Down in Waco" it really isn’t clear who fires first. Ultimately, though, being in a different country and with little existing awareness of the events may be crucial to being able to take this as art on a fairly standalone basis, and I can understand if others feel differently.

Onto what I enjoy in it: The Indelicates have never shied away from theatricality and a multi-character on-going narrative allows them to move even further in that direction. The country tones and ever-so-slightly hammy accent of “The Road From Houston to Waco”, the glam defiance of "I Am Koresh", the Chinese whispers that their large cast of vocalists play for humour before "Something Goin' Down in Waco" turns more serious, the base creepiness of "McVeigh". The way in which all of the melodies, voices and narratives are musically threaded together towards the end of the album in “Gethsemane” is fantastically well crafted.

Their scabrous wit is clear and present as ever, and the album poses some big questions in intelligent ways. They start with “Remember the Alamo”, a call to (a partial version of) history which establishes the mind-set that goes on to make some sense of what happens. Their central thesis, as I understand it, is that if you are brought up with a widely accepted belief in conspiracy theories and the irrational, it makes you more susceptible to believe in truly mad and dangerous things. Not guaranteed to fall for them, but more susceptible, and it’s a case they argue very creatively and persuasively. In particular “What if You’re Wrong?” grapples beautifully with the idea of faith and what happens when it gets to be so central to your mental picture that depending on your tenets of belief becomes the only way to keep belief in your own sanity.

Even with the aforementioned distance from the events described, it’s not exactly an easy listen, but one which feels rich, worthwhile and wholly unique.