REVIEWS - SEPTEMBER 2007

'BIG FUN

Passing the Time 7”

First release from cool Brooklyn recordstore, Passout Records. And this is having a strange effect on me. Extremely catchy and hooky, and extremely garagey pop..or sumthin’.. Fucking awesome hooks and. Four girls with a great feel for popsong and it’s just lofi and garagey enough to make my ears love it.

(Thomas)

Put on Records

 

BLACK LIPS

Cold Hands b/w My Struggle 7”

Cold Hands b/w Hippie Hippie Hoorah 7”

It’s not a Problem b/w Dirty Hands 7”

Guess it’s fairly regular practice by bigger labels to just release tons versions of singles and when it’s the Black Lips that get the treatment I’m not complaining. But putting a bunch of livesongs on a 7” is kinda boring so just suffice to say that the “Not a Problem” 7” is pretty redundant. The Cold Hands 7” though it pretty damn sweet, except for more livestuff in the form of “Hippie Hippie Hoorah” so skip that one too. “Cold Hands” is taken from their new and upcoming LP and sounds great. A bit cleaner and softer but it’s a damn great song. Can’t wait to hear it live. I fucking love it! “My Struggle” is a non-LP song and makes this single a definite must-have. A winner.

(Thomas)

Vice

 

BLACKS

Shattered: the complete singles collection LP

The complete output by in my mind Sweden’s best band ever. Yeah, ever! Heavily influenced by bands like the Gories and Oblivians and they do it great. I might be very biased but heck, listening to this almost ten years after they stopped playing, well eight years at least anyway, and it still is great shit. Remastered and great sounding.

(Thomas)

Gonna Puke

 

BUNKER HILL

Hide & Go Seek 7”

Whoa! One of the singles I’ve been most wanting to hear for the last ten years or so. Ever since ITR issued that damn cool double Blacktop single that had covers of “Hide & Go Seek” parts one and two. And damn if it ain’t up to my high expectations. This is a goddamn must for everyone into r’n’b.

(Thomas)

Norton Records

 

CHEATER SLICKS

Walk Into the Sea LP

Yeah, a brand spanking new Cheater Slicks LP right in time for their 20^th anniversary. Yeah, it’s been that long, but the Slicks haven’t slowed down, well maybe a bit but their music is as aggressive and introspective as always. Filled with hate and anguish. And they do it so damn well. I don’t like all the songs but mostly 90% is just amazing noisy rock’n’roll with a lot of roots in 60’s garage and blues. “Walk Into the Sea” shouldn’t let anyone who’ve liked them before down and it’s a good a starting point as any to discover one of the best bands out there, and one of the best bands for the last twenty years.

(Thomas)

Dead Canary Records

 

CHROME CRANKS

Diabolical Boogie Dbl-CD

Real cool comp of singles, demos, live and unreleased of this cool NYC band from way back when (90’s). Their dark brooding, yet really rockin’ swampy sound made up of bits and pieces of Blues Explosion, Scientists, Gun Club, Cramps etc is way cool. If you haven’t heard them before this might not be the place to start, pick up the Crypt LP instead but for the Cranks fan that has everything – this is a real winner. Loads of cool shit is packed on this baby.

(Thomas)

Atavistic

 

THEE FINE LINES

Heavily influenced by Billy Childish down to the very Thee in their name. But hey – no one does it in the States and there’s no one coming even close to being this good. I don’t mind, this is pretty rocking stuff. Not as good as Billy’s best bands but pretty decent.

(Thomas)

Licorice Tree Records

 

GAYE BLADES

I’d Brave Everything For You 7”

This is such a cute little garagey punksingle from Bobby Ubangi (Lids) and Jared Swilley (Black Lips). Cute songs, hooky tunes and a damn great lo-fi sound. If you’re a fan of either of the above mentioned bands or say maybe the Fe Fi Fo Fums then by all means get this. It’s just too cute to not love!

(Thomas)

Rob’s House/Die Slaughterhaus

 

INTELLIGENCE

Message of Love 7”

Two covers from the cool Intelligence. I like their experimental robotic stuff cause they always keep it trashy and rockin’ enough. It’s always cool and hardsounding. But keeping a danceable beat to it. Cool Stuff. Here they cover the Pretenders and Bob Dylan. I really like how “Message of Love” sounds but I don’t care that much for “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat” so this is a 50-50 situation..

(Thomas)

Disordered/Lo-Fi

 

JAY REATARD

I Know a Place b/w Don’t Let Him Come Back 7”

Kind of a departure as this is kinda acoustic but still in the same style as his latest solostuff. Pretty cool though. Great songs, and the production is cool. I think this might have been even cooler recorded “real” but it’s kinda cool the stuff he’s trying out these days. I can easily see him sliding over to some kinda Jeffrey Evans blues thing or back into punkmode or whatever. And it’s pretty darn cool that everything this guy touches is so great.

(Thomas)

Goner Records

 

KING KHAN & THE SHRINES

What Is?! CD

The world’s #1 soulband is back. This record has really been growing on me, at first I thought it was way too garagey and psychedlic but now I’m starting to think it’s their best one. A few more real hits would have made it a real killer. But there’s enough great songs here to make this a winner. A couple of real turds in the forms of some sorta free jazz experiment that really bums me out but that’s what CDs are great for, skipping songs. So without the turds, this is the shit.

(Thomas)

Hazelwood

 

LOVER!

S/t LP

Rich Crook fresh from such great bands as the Lost Sounds and the Knaughty Knights goes solo, kind of and produces a full album of great popsongs kinda continuing his style from his previous bands. Great shit! I love all the songs and the production sounds great. It’s kinda high energy rock’n’roll but pop songs. Sounds awesome.

(Thomas)

P Trash Records

 

THE MEENIES

Kill, Baby, Kill CD

Rawk from London. Supposedly inspired by Russ Meyer, New Bomb Turks and the Devil Dogs and while I kinda hear the influences this sounds nothing like the two great bands above. This has that sorta Social Distortion sound that’s pretty much unbearable. They also quoute say this sounds like “the Misfits getting drunk with Elvis listening to Social Distortion”. Ugh...

(Thomas)

Selfreleased

 

MOCKINGBIRDS

Always Late and Not Even Close CD

Ugh, this is horrible.. streetpunk made up to sound like rock’n’roll. Fuck this is horrible!!!

(Thomas)

Heptown Records

 

SEXUAL SLURS

S/t 7”

Ryan Wong and Steve Sleaze team up for some real lo-fi dirty punkrock in the Rip Off vein. Six songs, and two pretty great ones and four more medium memorable. Sounds like different recordings a bit too much also. Kind of a shame, sounds like this could have been a great single, lose two songs and some mastering maybe.. Well, what do I know... Pretty cool punkrock anyway. Reatards meets Rip Off Records.

(Thomas)

Solid Sex Lovie Doll Records

 

SONIC NEGROES
Honky Bastard Blues CD

These guys from Stockholm are still rummaging in the mid-90’s Hellacopters pool of actionrock. Taking cues from bands like the Stooges etc. Nothing new, fairly competent.. Not my cup of tea at all..

(Thomas)

It’s Not About Music Records

 

THE SONICS

Busy Body!!! Live in Tacoma 1964 LP

Another cool discovery from the Norton folks. Two long lost live recordings of the Sonics from 1964. I mean yeah, live records aren’t the shit but this is a damn cool testament of time. A part of rock’n’roll history. The Sonics, probably the epitome of 60’s garagerock, caught live in their early days. You get two live shows and classics like “Have Love, Will Travel”, “Busy Body”, “The Witch” and “Night Train” plus more and come cool introductions and radio spots concerning the two shows. All in all a cool package, raw sounding but with pretty good fidelity anyway courtesy of Tim Warren and the Crypt Studios.

(Thomas)

Norton Records

 

SWEET ROT

Drug Fiend... 7”

Cool as fuck punk ‘77-style. And it’s not overly retrosounding or anything like that. This is just a great fucking punkrock single. Three damn cool tunes that soon have me hollering along! Hope they can keep it up.. Cause I want this shit to keep on coming.

(Thomas)

Square Wave Records

 

TRACTOR SEX FATALITY

Braces 7”

Heavy and trashy, and the best I’ve heard so far from TSF. Usually it’s too noisy and hard sounding for me to like but this time it’s kinda sloppy and dirty and lo-fi which gives the noise a much garagier sound. For fans of nosiy stuff like Human Eye and the Blowtops.

(Thomas)

Kill Sounds/Unscene

TWISTIN’ RUMBLE 1-4 LP

Four new fantastic comps of insane dancenumbers. How awesome is that?! Yeah, enough to break out the A-word. It’s fucking awesome! And these comps are just plain fantastic. Not one of these songs will let you down. It’s a great package all the way down from the insanely great artwork to each individual song. Ranging from soul to r’n’b to exotica to garage to slop.. Some are just uncategorizable. There’s some stuff you’ve probably heard before but the soundquality is awesome. Put these on at any party and you’ll soon have a bonafide dancingparty going on all night!

(Thomas)

No label

VIKINGS

I Need Your Lovin’ 7”

Cool reissue of apparently ultrarare 45 from ’65. Cool shit anyways. B-side is a bit too soft for my ears though. A softvoiced ballad. But the fact that there’s so much fucking awesome stuff that haven’t been reissued the right way yet is just amazing, and who can complain when great shit like this just continues showing up on great sounding singles from Norton. Just get this if you’re a fan of 60’s garage. You won’t be disappointed.

(Thomas)

Norton Records

 

ANGRY ANGLES / DIGITAL LEATHER split 7”

Pretty cool split. Angry Angles’ got a really cool sound which I guess you know by now. Rumor has it their ITR fullength is still coming out. Digital Leather isn’t my thing to a hundred percent. It’s a bit too electronic. But as far as ‘electro’, these guys are by far the best I’ve heard.

(Thomas)

Shattered Records

 

BLACK LIPS / DEMON’S CLAWS Split 7”

Another installment in the Rolling Stones cover 7” series from Norton. All of these are pretty redundant but there’s some really cool bands here and there and this is the best of the bunch so far. Demon’s Claws do a very stripped down “Factory Girl”. Sounds more like a demo recording, but fairly okay I guess. The Blips do “What To Do” and in a very Black Lips-y way. At the end of the song you’ll be thinking it’s a Black Lips song. They can do no wrong right now. Great tune!

(Thomas)

Norton Records