With At Maximum Volume, their fourth album in the last five years, The Booze have laid down a bold declaration and appear intent on upping the ante on their easy beats, on re-inventing the cool that they re-birthed just last year. Okay, this one’s not really any louder than the ones that came before it, but the devil’s in the details, baby, and this Atlanta quintet of tight pants throw so much woozy in their bloozy that their rubber-legged approach to ripping off the Stones will force you to take a vacation from your sobriety. Stepping straight out of London’s shaggy-haired mod scene, The Booze play as smooth as ice, but take the traditional R&B/pop flavour of that era and smother it in despair and heartbreak, a down-on-your-luck sound that draws just as much from Thunders’ New York gutter rock of the 70s-80s as it does from the swank hip shake of Britain’s swingin’ 60s. Ultimately, though, The Booze are a pantheon to Mick and Keef, shining like Diamond Dogs, keen and mean with a Detroit lean, spruced up for a night out, even if it ends in tears.
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds often play strange, but when they transform into Grinderman, the alter-ego of a band that hardly needs an alter-ego at all, they play raw and dirty, too. The scuzzy lounge rock of Grinderman is a decadent mess that only Nick Cave could orchestrate, a penthouse orgy of electric blues and feral poetry, and 2′s subtle psychedelic nibbles erase any misgivings about the band’s ability to love you after they fuck you. To that end, 2 is slower and sexier than the band’s 2007 self-titled debut at times, slinking its way through songs like “When My Baby Comes” “What I Know,” and “Palaces of Montezuma,” but still has the rock n’ roll machismo to lash out with unadulterated passion on songs like “Worm Tamer,” “Heathen Child,” and “Evil”. Grinderman is just further proof that Nick Cave really gets it, a beast white hot and brutally cool all at once.
Check out the video for “Heathen Child” from Grinderman 2!
The Jim Jones Revue Burning Your House Down
Punk Rock Blues
The congregation is sweatin’ and moanin’, children, for Jim Jones, the white man, has come to claim the bastard blues. Oh Lord, yes! One for the money, two for the show, like Jerry Lee and Elvis before him, Mr. Jones rattles every single one of your bones. His midnight Revue, leather-faced retinue, a real pack of cool, shakes shacks with the best of ‘em, and only the loudest, fuzziest, hip socket rock will do. The former Thee Hypnotics and Black Moses front man is on a mission and completely out of his mind, his greasy-haired head down, and three albums in three years (including 2008′s self-titled album and 2009′s Here to Save Your Soul) is a real heavy load, but not even a great ball of fire is gonna stop his screamin’ train from rollin’ on. Garage funk, Motown soul — it’s all kinds of righteous rock n’ roll, doused in gasoline, with a sonic swagger that would make Scott Morgan proud. Goodness gracious!
Check out the video for “High Horse” from Burning Your House Down!
The Booze
Grinderman
