We’re in the part of thew year where we get to overeating in the name of family, country and religion. We’re hard pressed to think of a better song for the occasion than “Lazy Boy” by the Love Hounds. Are we basing this around the line “Woke up with my Lazy Boy stuck in recline, it happens all the time?” Yes partially, and while we know within the context of the song it’s about being drunk and a mess let us not discredit the powerful food drunk of the season. Also the regular binge drunk that the holidays can bring out of us. But we’re mostly basing this pick on the fact that it’s a cow punk, garage rock barn burner. The type of thing your coolest of uncles or older cousins would turn you onto, perhaps while on a run to the liquor store that they let you tag along on. And as they turn it up and say “this is REAL music” you nod your head, because that is the truth.
Week Ender – Love Hounds
Friday 5×5
Friday 5×5 is our segment where we give you five new tracks to check out and give ourselves the challenge of describing said tracks in only five words.
Need some tunes to keep you leveled out as you battle through the scrum that is Black Friday? We got you. Check out these songs so good they don’t need a bunch of hyping up for you to want to bring them home to the family. New tunes from Nick Noon, Miriam Clancy, picnic., Lazy Queen and Farewell Horizontal.
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The B-Side: Lorem Ipsum
From the Netherlands come Lorem Ipsum with a catchy little number called “Lessons In Living.” The lessons these Nords seem to have learned is how far you can go on a well crafted, straight forward riff if you imbue it with swagger and energy and a dash of mystery. Is that a guitar running through a fuzz pedal set to obliterate or is it an organ set to 11 and played through a blown speaker? Who knows, but also who cares because either way it’s cool. Throw in a grooving rhythm section and catchy vocals and you have a certified strut that shimmies down the line between indie rock and garage rock.
Week Ender – Graham Repulski
On the surface the GBV lo-fi thing seems like it would be easy to replicate, and lord knows we’ve received many a submission of those who’ve tried. Blow out most, if not all the tracks, for instant Uncle Bob magic. But what most of them forget is that underneath the layers of fuzz and squall there has to be a killer song fighting to break through, that’s the magic part. Luckily for us “Flaming Television” by Graham Repulski gets it right. So right in fact that it’d be easy to think this was a lost Pollard track (not that there are any lost Pollard tracks because he releases everything, constantly); and while we generally don’t dig it when artists stick so close to their inspirations we do dig this. Because it’s rare to hear someone get the formula right, and because as prodigious as BP is the world could always use more perfect pop songs wrapped in chaos.
Friday 5×5
It’s been a long week, and so let us dilly dally no more, let us get right to the point with the briefest of reviews of new music by Sterile Cuckoo, INASEH, November Ultra, Father Baker and Cherokee Death Cats.
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The Midweekly – Death Valley Girls
The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
As if the high winds of the desert have blown through the windows of filthy lube shop, grit and grease have found their own way into every crevice of this record. Aptly titled Street Venom by the aptly named Death Valley Girls, this is the 2021 deluxe re-release of their debut from seven years ago. With scorching intensity DVG grind out a garage rock sound that harkens back to the days of the genre’s origin, but with a harder, more modern punk engine driving the writing style. For a few moments on the record the whirlwind settles down a bit into psychedelic tinged slow jams. It all conjures images of a hot rod burning down the straight away stretch of an arid landscape, or a scorpion crawling up your leg. Fuzzed up riffs and hammered out beats coming from one direction. Parched vocals from another. Wailing verses of paranoia, and self-loathing, satirical choruses about female submission, or the longing for being locked up. This southern California group will kick sand in your face, put a stinger up your ass, and have a good time doing it.
Week Starter – The Shadow Mountain
Forget your coffee on the counter as you rushed out the door this morning? Don’t worry fam, we got you. Just crank up “Guillotines” by The Shadow Mountain for a triple shot of wonderfully scuzzy garage rock with riffs a plenty, lyrics about sticking it to the man and a sweet tambourine part to air tambo too. Most rock songs this overtly political tend to be either straight ahead punk (or RATM), so it’s a nice surprise to hear this kind of Stooges meets desert rock vibe joining the fight. It feels a bit like the stoners in shop class dropping Marxist theory on their peers, and if that ain’t a beautiful world I don’t know what is.
Friday 5×5
Today we keep our typing tight and let loose on your ears new tracks from Under Delusion, Lo Fade, jericho jericho, Angelnumber 8 and Elephant Stone.
Week Ender – Polartropica
If you are currently under the cold thumb of winter storm Landon you probably don’t want to have anything to do with anything else with Polar in the name. Focus instead on the Tropica part of Polartropica and let the colorful fun of “Serial Killer Slayer” melt your skepticism, and perhaps if you crank it up loud enough it just might sonically shovel your driveway for you. Polartropica is the musical project of Los Angeles based artist Ihui Cherise Wu, stitching together a wide array of musical styles to create their own dream world. One song is hyper pop, another is an otherworldly Francophile cabaret number, and yet another is an alternate universe 50’s ballad. Wu is less of a traditional musical artist and more of “what if Meow Wolf was a person.” It’s an everything and the kitchen sink approach that somehow works because of….magic? “Serial Killer Slayer” is a revved up pop leaning garage rocker with equally infectious video to match. I mean who doesn’t love an arcade fighting game theme? Especially one that includes the graphic “EAT MA FRUITY BALLS.” We’d love to see more of this style from Wu in the future, but as they’ve proven so far, not one single style can contain them, and that’s ok too.