Photo: Mark Hines
Bygones is a good album title for a band saying goodbye to recording. Just released on vinyl, CD and digital, the fifth album by the Mike Benign Compulsion will “probably be our last,” says vocalist, songwriter and namesake Mike Benign. “It’s hit the point where it’s a lot of work—a labor of love with diminishing returns.”
But jump to no conclusions: The band plans to be around for a while, at least through next summer. Benign appears to have no firm plans. He formed Compulsion 10 years ago, ending a 15-year musical gap since the last gig of his previous band, Blue in the Face. That previous band was a larger ensemble with bigger ambitions, including road trips and the tantalizing mirage of a record contract at the end of an epoch when that still mattered.
Compulsion is simply a band of old friends, its core consisting of Joe Vent (guitar), Paul Biemann (bass) and Michael Koch (drums). They are well established in their daytime lives with no rock-star dreams and no pressure except honoring their muses.
The continuity across the Blue in the Face and Compulsion catalogs is Benign’s body of work as one of Milwaukee’s most accomplished songwriters. He’s denied the comparison for years, but an occasional echo of Elvis Costello can be heard, especially on Bygone’s opener, “Beauty & Pedigree & Bank,” sung with a sardonic edge over a backing track that sounds like classic Attractions. Several selections, especially “Let it Rain or Let it Be” and “Heaven Knows What,” suggest the White Album filtered through the sensibility of Squeeze and Crowded House.
Lyrically and musically, many of Bygone’s songs sound resigned—to time’s passage in “These Heroes,” dead-end careers in “Bobby May’s Holiday” and to resignation itself in “The Bombs Rain Down.” With “Bonafide Americans,” Benign strikes an angrier note against the absurdity of the reign of the White House’s reality TV star.
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“I’ve never felt comfortable writing happy songs, lyrically,” Benign says. “I’ve always had a pessimistic, skeptical quality,” enlivened by his “love of three-minute pop songs—the insistence that a song shouldn’t go on a second longer than it needs to.” In keeping with the ’60s-based pop sensibility, the musicians “are good but not show-offy,” Benign continues. “They understand how their playing fits into the context of the songs.”
And the future? “We’ve done what we set out to do, and conquering the world was not on that list,” Benign says. “We’ve opened for amazing people like Squeeze and Neil Finn at Summerfest and The Alarm at Shank Hall. The opportunity to meet your heroes is phenomenal.” However, with a band called Compulsion, the urge to continue (and record again) might be irresistible.
The Mike Benign Compulsion will perform an album release show at Club Garibaldi with White Sweater and Wire and Nail on Saturday, Sept. 28, at 8 p.m.
