We Must Obey

Album Review

In an age of increasingly short attention spans, it's no small feat for a band to arrive at the career landmark of a tenth album — but that's where So-Cal fuzz rock institution Fu Manchu finds itself with 2007's We Must Obey. Perhaps even more impressive is how the quartet has remained remarkably faithful to their original sonic aesthetic over these many releases and 15-odd years; thereby rewarding the group with the sort of dedicated following enjoyed by other standard bearers of a particular musical footprint: AC/DC, Motörhead, the Ramones. Of course Fu Manchu don't yet share these bands' ubiquitous presence in the average music consumer's psyche (much like their closest generational parallel, Clutch), and some of their discs have been better than others, but the point of all this is that there are few things in the land of rock & roll that are as guaranteed as a Fu Manchu album. Therefore, it naturally follows that We Must Obey doesn't even attempt to break with this tradition, but rather sets right about the business of uncovering fresh new riff sequences with which to propel hard-charging fuzz rock anthems like "Knew It All Along," "Shake It Loose," and the title cut toward the mirage-like horizons capping desert highways. At the other end of the spectrum, we have slower offerings that evidently prize monolithic grooves over raw energy (witness "Lesson" and the psychedelic surf-metal of "Sensei vs. Sensei"), or minimalist dynamics that put a different kind of space in Fu Manchu's space rock (see first single "Hung out to Dry" and "Land of Giants," featuring a novel, distorted growl). And, last but not least, there's a suitably distorted cover of the Cars' "Moving in Stereo," offering the only real surprise in an otherwise perfectly expected Fu Manchu album experience — their loyal fans wouldn't want it any other way.