Apparently an entire year crept past before I realised there was a vinyl reissue of the 2006 album, which in any case I hadn't actually got around to buying because I hadn't looked close enough to realise that it was more or less a lost Devo record.
Well, I got on board as soon as I could, I guess.
I assume the lads had come to regard Devo as pretty much over by 2006, hence the slight shift in aesthetic emphasis, although not so much of a shift as to have retained the album title for the reissue. Mine is Not a Holy War - as it's no longer known - could be viewed as the Devo record bridging the gap between 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps and Something For Everybody of 2010 on the grounds of featuring all other members of Devo and reviving a couple of songs from the early years. It's probably not as good as Something For Everybody - which was frankly astonishing - but it's better than Smooth Noodle Maps, and Smooth Noodle Maps was nevertheless a decent album bespoiled by generic eighties production which made it sound like Bon Jovi. Here we get more expensive sounding retreads of I Been Refused, Find Out, and I Need a Chick alongside material with which I'm entirely unfamiliar. Find Out is an improvement, I Need a Chick probably should have been left alone, and I'm still not sure what to make of I Been Refused. It's a decent rendering but the original demo version may be my all-time Devo favourite, so I'm still trying to work out what I think about the fresh coat of paint. The newer material is, for what it may be worth, dynamite.
It's a pretty great album despite my piddling fannish reservations, giving emphasis to Devo's bluesier roots and keeping absolutely true to the rubber pants wearing mutant spirit of de-evolution. Now that Devo really do seem to have become past tense - barring attempts to flog expensive books of pictures to the rest of us - I could probably stand to hear a whole lot more from Jerry.
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