I’d love to go for a pint with Micko Westmoreland. Funnily enough Micko is the sartorially elegant and distinctly left field genius behind Micko & the Mellotronics, who have recently released their third, and best, album to date in the fittingly titled The Trilogy. So why the “go for a pint” statement? Quite simple really, I find him to be quite an intriguing character, with a background, among other things, including playing Jack Fairy in the glam-rock inspired epic Velvet Goldmine, several musical scores recorded under the name Bowling Green and of course his three most recent works under the Mellotronics banner, which, to state the bleeding obvious is where we’re landing at today.
When you listen to The Trilogy, and I mean really listen to Trilogy, focussing on the lyrical content and not just to the melodies and the playing, which to be fair in themself are enough to instantly hook you and reel you in, you are presented with a fascinating series of deep and meaningful songs, almost like a psychological study in album form, an exploration into the human psyche and insights into the inner workings of the mind. Musically, the album straddles the gap between 1970’s melodic punk à la Buzzcocks (The Trilogy could have been the album they made if Pete Shelley hadn’t passed and Steve Diggle hadn’t assumed the role of rock god) and I shudder to use the word, 90s Britpop, but not the instantly forgettable regurgitated landfill indie – some of whom somehow still exist to this day – I’m talking of the more idiosyncratic bands, the ones with more left field approach and off the wall songs… I’ll leave you to use your imagination.
There is nothing landfillesque or throwaway about this album, every thought provoking song probably throws up more questions than they answer and will have your own mind going down rabbit holes as you consider the lyrical content long after the songs reach their zenith. There are no boy meets girl and they fall in love songs here… well technically there kind of is in a very roundabout way with Parked Car, but certainly not in the conventional sense… Micko isn’t just a performer, he’s an artist. One who has an innate ability, through his witty lyricism with a veracious honesty at its heart, to paint vivid pictures in your mind, pictures that will have you taking his blueprint and expanding them into your own world view.
The Trilogy had been teased ahead of its release by some of the absolute gems from the album, including the first trio of tracks on the record, Shadow, Proper Job and Would You Believe It?. When you take the former at face value on first listen, it appears to all intent and purpose to be a straightforward tale about sibling conflict and antagonism, but when you realise the lyrics are Micko’s exploration of the relationship with your own psyche, the shadow self concept in Jungian theory, using socially unacceptable thoughts to illustrate the negative “what if” scenarios that play out with that niggling voice in your head it takes on a whole new provocative and more more sinister meaning. The incisive guitar lines race like the thoughts in your head buzzing with an electrically charged intensity, and an element of dark menace in the overall arrangement. Proper Job takes a dig at jibes directed towards wannabe musicians – “knuckle down or you’ll get the worst job in town” – to a soundtrack with a distinctly 1970s glam vibe going on in the melody and guitar riffs and background “heys” and is filled with some of his great lyrical one-liners including describing HMV as “the M&S of the record industry.” What is a proper job anyway?
Would You Believe It explores the themes of life and death, or in his words, first and last moments, drawn from Micko’s personal experiences of his father passing (the song title comes from a phrase he would say when Micko visited) and at the other end of the spectrum, the birth of his son. Elsewhere on the album mortality is explored in the affecting Now I’m Dead, where the theme is tackled with a degree of humour reflecting on regrets or questioning the things we focus on during life that in the grand scheme of things don’t matter – “Now I’m dead I’m hovering above you, watching a documentary of the time… those petty things don’t matter down the line.”
The other singles featuring on the album are Parked Car referenced earlier, Misery Guts, a study in dysfunctional relationships where Misery Guts meets/loves and hates Naysayer in a variety of degrees as lack of self awareness results in mutual misery…I wonder how this would reflect on many of our relationships if we took a look in the mirror?… and Guilty, the latter originally a standalone single from November 2024. Every one of these songs is a veritable mini-epic, stirring kitchen sink dramas portraying snapshots of the vagaries of life (and death) many of them inspired by personal experiences. Guilty however isn’t one of those personal songs, it empathetically tells the galling tale of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK and the misogyny that surrounded her sentence. Misogyny is also a theme explored to a degree in Parked Car, a 1970s story of the shadowing conducting of illicit affairs and the fallout, blame and guilt often landing at the feet of the woman.
Some of the best songs come from the deep cuts on the album, maybe not deemed to be singles but hitting hard all the same and warranting revisiting, one of these is the fittingly discombobulating urgent insistency of All At Sea, where Micko muses on aging and being swamped with overwhelming thoughts and confusion. Immediately following All At Sea is another album highlight which is surely a personal celebration of life for Micko himself, Viva the Underdog has a celebratory air to it with a jaunty rhythm, upbeat melody and a soaring chorus. The album closes in style with another album highlight, Mystery of the Night, a classy brass infused track. There are elements of the song that have an almost Blur-like feel to them, but with more a bluesy lilt, as it builds to a spiritedly textured crescendo before leaving us with a suitably thoughtfully reflective outro to round of the album.