Miss Autopsy shares a lot of common ground with early Mountain Goats, such as uncomfortably raw vocals and a tendency towards rather wordy narrative lyrics. However, Steve Beyerink has something that John Darnielle does not: a singular propensity for squirm-inducingly soul-baring misanthropy and pessimism that precludes absolutely any possibility of widespread acceptance. While certainly somewhat flawed, this album is not an easy one to forget.
Chicago’s Miss Autopsy began as a solo bedroom recording project in 2003 but gradually blossomed into a full band…and is now back to being just Beyerink. It's probably better that way as other musicians would only dilute his lonely, black-hearted vision. That said, Steve does not radically depart from Miss Autopsy's past formula of creepy, unsettling lyrics and dark, blues-influenced indie rock/post punk. Instead, he seems to have focused on doing the same thing as always, but better.
The presence of other musicians is not missed. Significantly, Steve’s vocals and deliberately blunt, disturbing lyrics are so central that the surrounding music is almost irrelevant: Caterpillar would likely be even more compelling if it was reduced to just the vocal track. While decent and certainly functional, the underlying music rarely threatens to overshadow the vocals (aside from the excellent jagged guitar solo that concludes “That Fighting Spirit” and the sloppy, yet cathartic, shredding in the title track). That is not to say that Steve is an infallible vocalist, however: he can be a bit clumsy and over-the-top at times. In fact, some songs would be unintentionally comical if the lyrics weren’t delivered with such unwaveringly grim conviction (like the opener, “Jonathan”). Other times, it seems like Steve is being intentionally funny: the opening verse of “Caterpillar,” in which he discusses murdering the friendly titular Lepidoptera in his garden, seems like it can only be deliberate self-parody. Probably, anyway. Regardless, he’s a scary guy. There are a times when he approaches being a hookier, more conventionally musical Jandek.
When Beyerink gets it right the results are often gripping, immediate, and incendiary in a way that few other performers can approach (perhaps because there is no superfluous artifice or polish). The breathlessly sociopathic “Dead Loner Blues” and the nakedly cathartic crescendo of “Caterpillar” stand out as especially stunning in an already impressive batch of songs. The true centerpiece, however, is “The Wildlife Refuge.” Nobody else could turn a spoken recollection of a nocturnal trip into one of the most mesmerizing and haunting pieces of music that I've heard in a while (“Instantly, in comes a stench. It smelled like crystal meth and murder.”). I’m sure I will probably read about this guy committing a spectacular suicide on stage some day, but until then I will be enthusiastically awaiting each new dispatch from his irrevocably twisted head. Inconsistency and occasional conspicuous missteps are necessary consequences when you’re chasing brilliance with no filter or artistic detachment.
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