Sometimes you come across a band too big for their platform boots, a gang of cigarette suckers with stars for eyes who’ll turn any storage closet in any bar into their own personal dressing room. The singer’s got a $150 scarf wrapped around his neck even though he looks like he can’t afford to eat. He’s all ribs, eyeliner, and petulant posturing while his band plays the dutiful, leather-jacketed longhairs, masters of their bloozy craft. The Nuclears are that band. Or they fucking sound like it, anyway. And while there’s no doubt that this New York-by-way-of-Washington band’s sound drips with elements of a champagne n’ limousine glam rock, it’s the raw power and punk rock attitude that really propels this self-titled debut, making it a drunken, desperate mess of rock n’ roll energy. Flat out, this album sizzles the second it drops, it’s first half a shakin’ jukebox of ragged riffs and shout-along glory; there’s not a song amongst “Pay Yer Dues,” “Get Me Outta Here,” “A Blindfold & A Cigarette,” “Get Up!,” and “Tanzen Macht Frei” that hasn’t been touched by a handful of essentially influential bands like The Ramones, The Stooges, early Aerosmith, and Hanoi Rocks. Now, the train could’ve kept a-rollin’ right along and everything would’ve been super fine, but the album’s second half goes off the tracks a bit thanks to a grouping of songs whose styles and sounds are all over the map. There’s not a bad song in the bunch, per se, but they don’t deliver the same flow and punch as the first-half songs; the near seven minute “Eclipso” has shades of Black Sabbath (particularly “Children of the Grave”) running throughout, “Fast Cars & Loud Guitars” and “Rock & Roll Riot” (both of which would’ve been totally at home on the first half) are gutter rock numbers that do The Dictators proud, “Turn On You” is an organ-fried gospel/soul song, and “You Can Make It” brings the Rolling Stones’ country n’ blues to life. Listen, all that second-half confusion aside, there’s something endearingly blue about The Nuclears, like a well-earned thigh bruise, and even though they’re not entirely new to the scene (ex-Drag Citizen singer Nick Vivid has some miles under him), they’re on the cusp of stumbling into a whole heap of hot action. And when that happens, brother, we’re gonna be dealing with one confident, bad-ass, braggadocios bunch.
Now, it’s not in my nature to quote press sheets or bios because they rarely contain anything helpful, but I’m gonna make an exception here for The Atomic Bitchwax’s fifth full-length album, The Local Fuzz, because the following sticking point is so strong and succinct, and sums up this effort in such a way that’s just about impossible to ignore: “a single, glorious 42-minute song that contains no less than 50 riffs back-to-back.” Now, I didn’t actually count all the riffs, but these New Jersey cosmic rockers ain’t ever lied to me before, and besides, the song is pretty damn glorious, so do yourself a favour and put away the abacus, let your ponytail out, and lose yourself in your musty, well-worn couch. TAB aren’t the first to write a one-song album, and probably won’t be the last, but it takes a certain amount of stamina to spend the better part of an hour rollin’ through a spacey jam, and you’ve got to have a hell of a lot of faith in your listeners not to get up from that couch to get a snack and never come back. That shouldn’t be a problem here, though, because they’ve been doing the former for years now, usually in much smaller doses, and the relentless attack of The Local Fuzz’s prog-laced groove will hold your attention like a flaming meteor shower (even when it slows down for a brief moment just over the halfway mark). You know, I thought TAB floated a little off track with 2009′s 4, but The Local Fuzz puts everything right again, no doubt about it, and that includes the naked fem-bot on the cover, who recalls the hot-bodied, big-tittied familiarity of covers past (I, II, 3, and the Spit Blood EP).
Check out a nine minute slice of “The Local Fuzz” from The Local Fuzz!
It’s been four years since their last album, but Weedeater’s Jason…The Dragon finally sees its release, no doubt a welcome relief to vocalist/bassist “Dixie” Dave Collins whose shotgun-cleaning accident in January of 2010 left him without a big toe and delayed the album’s recording. Now, I never heard word whether the toe was successfully reattached or whether he blew it to smithereens and is altogether toe-less (or how this incident affected his relationship with his “favourite shotgun”), but it seems Collins’ sacrifice was not in vain because the North Carolina trio (completed by Dave “Shep” Shepherd on guitar and Keith “Keko” Kirkum on drums) has come out the other side of the whole mess with a real nasty bite to ‘em. That’s not to say that Weedeater weren’t as viscous as a frothing rottweiler before with all that feedback n’ fuzz, but Jason seems to find the band one step closer to oblivion; they’ve taken the Southern-fried sludge of earlier albums, dipped it into a big ol’ bucket of doom, and are spit-roasting it over Hell’s hot fires for maximum evil flavour. I mean, the quad shot of “Hammerhandle,” “Mancoon,” “Turkey Warlock,” and “Jason…The Dragon” all sound like Satan mowing over eternally damned souls atop a John Deere while a Motörhead record melts off a turntable into a hot, thick corrosive mess. For tradition’s sake, though, they manage to slip some back porch numbers in there, like the rubbery “Palm and Opium” and the album’s instrumental closer “Whiskey Creek” (complete with the sounds of crickets and rain), and the album title’s play on words (in line with …And Justice for Y’all and God Luck and Good Speed) shows that even without a full slew of digits, the band has kept that (now forked) tongue planted firmly in their tobacco-stained cheek.
The Nuclears
The Atomic Bitchwax
Weedeater