THE REPLACEMENTS Pleased To Meet Me (Sire)

by Ira Robbins

Like some stray dog you find in an alley, Minneapolis’s Replacements are a scruffy mongrel of a band: uncontrollable and ugly, but somehow irresistable. You sense intelligencesensitivity, even—behind the drippy, unfocused eyes and wobbly walk, but when you reach down to pet it, the muttfink spins around and bites you on the leg.

Pleased To Meet Me is the Mats’ first studio date since sacking guitarist Bob Stinson, who evidently embraced the band’s fuck-up ethos with a tad too much enthusiasm. To singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg’s—and perhaps producer Jim Dickinson’s—credit, the de-Stinsonized Mats mostly sound the same as ever; a sloppy genius pile of melodyladen guitar noise, amazing vocals and brilliantly savage lyrics, intermingled with lowkey bits of wistful reflection, half-cocked experimentation and an overriding don’t-give-adamn attitude.