While American artists like the Strokes, White Stripes, and most recently, the Burning Brides and Von Bodies have been giving British audiences fodder to fawn over for the past couple of years, the U.K. is about to return the favor.

Introducing McLusky, a Welsh power trio whose latest album, McLusky Do Dallas, brims with punk swagger and arrogance. Tough talk is cheap, but walking the walk comes just as easily for this band of bad arses. Their musical smugness is buoyed by infectious chops and melodic hooks, and when the package is delivered at breakneck speed with a healthy sense of humor, McLusky's mix provides touchstones for fans of punk, rock, hardcore and avant-garde metal alike.

Other than spitting out pedal-to-the-metal, balls-to-the-wall bombast, there's not much more to McLusky. The title of the LP's first single, "To Hell With Good Intentions" — not to mention the nonsensical line "My love is bigger than your love/ We take more drugs than a touring funk band" — makes that perfectly clear.

"There's no agenda, really, other than to be a really good band," said singer Andy Falkous. His demure speech is surprising, given the lunatic caterwauling he spews on record. "And hopefully we'll play with other really good bands and be like Nirvana was for me when I was 16, where you can get the rock out in music that isn't necessarily retarded."

Retarded no, but most certainly warped. McLusky aim for the gut with their visceral sonic assault. Guitars snake around and scream like they're on the verge of snapping while the wild percussion provokes mindless thrashing. For all its straightforwardness, though, the tracks on McLusky Do Dallas are as distinctive as they are ridiculous.

"Lightsabre C--ksucking Blues" is a rambling rant peppered with explosive guitars. Andy's sneer on "Collegen Rock" is reminiscent of Johnny Rotten's as he laments on manufactured bands. And the slow-going "F--- This Band" and egotistical "The World Loves Us and Is Our Bitch" are proof that McLusky are the first to not take themselves so seriously.

Falkous met drummer Mat Harding in 1996 and formed McLusky with original bassist Geriant Bevan, who would leave three years later, to be replaced by Jon Chapple. It wasn't so much an idea of what they wanted to do, but rather what they didn't want to do, that helped ignite McLusky's fuse.

"One thing we didn't want to do was sound like Oasis, Cast, the Stereophonics and Manic Street Preachers," Falkous said. "Our focus was not to sound like that at the start. To try to do something a bit raw — things coming from bands like Pixies, Big Black, bands that are doing things that are a little more raw without having a particular battle plan, because then you restrict yourself to a certain type of music. The one thing which I'm always keen to bear in mind is that the best bands never had any fear, and if they wanted to do something different it didn't matter as long as you didn't have any fear and just launched into it."

McLusky's first album, My Pain and Sadness Is More Painful and Sad Than Yours, released in the U.K. in November 2000, garnered a good reaction from the finicky British press, but it was a live recording from a BBC radio show that got them signed to the highly credible Too Pure imprint.

That fact is a testament to McLusky's live show, which U.S. fans will get a taste of when they embark on their maiden tour of these shores November 2 in Seattle. Like any good rock band that perpetually sounds on the verge of collapsing, they approach their gigs like a drag race, meaning they could either end up in blaze of glory or clang and rattle so hard that the wheels come off. Falkous wouldn't have it any other way.

"There's a certain thing to be said about being a rambling, chaotic wreck, but when it's all the time, that's not a good thing. We give it our all and sometimes it's magic and sometimes it's a disaster. That's the way it goes."

McLusky tour dates, according to their publicist:

  • 11/2 - Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Cafe
  • 11/4 - San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
  • 11/5 - Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
  • 11/8 - Chicago, IL @ Schuba's Tavern
  • 11/9 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
  • 11/11 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern
  • 11/12 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
  • 11/13 - Washington, DC @ Velvet Lounge
  • 11/14 - Brooklyn, NY @ Luxx
  • 11/15 - Philadelphia, PA @ North Star Bar