The Nuclears

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.

Listen to “Get Me Outta Here” from The Nuclears!

Natural Child

This debut album from Nashville trio Natural Child comes as advertised, a rusty, country-fried rock n’ roll record no doubt spurred on by the magic that went down at Villa Nellcote in the south of France during the druggy, exiled summer of its namesake. Bolstered by an abundance of Caucasian funk and half-baked whimsy, Natural Child freely saunter through eleven songs of bare-boned garage fuzz (“Easy Street,” “Hard Workin’ Man,” “Makin’ It,” “Natural Blues”), acoustic blues (“Woman C’mon,” “White People,” “Yer Birthday”), hazy jams (“Yoko,” “Let it Bleed,” “Beer”), and some punk-infused pop (“Chris’ Blues”), and ought to remind you of the Rolling Stones (natch), Lions in the Street, The White Stripes, and The Flaming Sideburns. You know, forty years removed and 1971 does a helluva job harnessing the kind of weird, organic rock that once served millionaires, dope fiends, and outlaws extremely well.

Listen to “Easy Street” from 1971!

The Adjusters

One of my favourite albums last year was The Adjusters’ debut, Reckless Relations. It was a real slick n’ sleazy punk rock record, and an awfully wonderful surprise to boot, too, seeing as how The Adjusters are a bunch of juveniles. Thankfully, juveniles and delinquency go hand-in-hand, and if you’re going to devote your life to safety pin suicide, you need to spoil the disenfranchised with a sound they can dance to. Well, The Adjusters are back — slightly older and hopefully none the wiser — with a brand new single, …Always in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time, and while it doesn’t quite match the raw unpredictability of their debut, it does posses a stronger sense of craftsmanship and melody. Side A’s offering, “Wrong Place, Wrong Time,” is a street savvy ivory n’ blues rocker that sounds something like the Dead Boys bustin’ jukeboxes in a soda shop, while the flip-side’s “You Gotta Say” is a true pop gem bolstered by a Stones-inspired country n’ glam riff and a bunch of ‘woo-hoos’ that roll right along with it. Okay, so it turns out The Adjusters are a little bit wiser, but they still pack enough greasy gumption to give you the two-fingered salute.

Listen to “You Gotta Say” from …Always in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time!

The Booze
At Maximum Volume

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.

Listen to “Kick Me Where It Hurts” from At Maximum Volume!

The Brought Low
Third Record

It’s a rare and celebratory day when a new Brought Low album drops, so stop whatever it is you’re doing, dust off the ol’ beard, summon the buzzards, and grab a pint of glory. The obviously named Third Record is just that, and only in the last ten years, too. Christ, it’s like these fuckers live looser than a goose the day after Thanksgiving, only stumbling out of their Dudeist rock haze once every four or five years to lay a big, bad-ass, bloozy rock record on us. You’ve got to have a whole heap of respect for a band who rocks on THEIR terms, the same way you envy a fat cat sleeping in the sun on a dusty Sunday afternoon. Fuck, you say, I wish I could live/rock like that.

The Brought Low could easily be the undisputed Glam Boogie Kings of New York City if they wanted to be, but in a place where you’ve got to be seen to be somebody, there ain’t too many bright lights shining on the chicken coop of the slow roll. Their riffs flow like molasses, but glitter like stardust, and songs like “Everybody Loves a Whore” and “The Kelly Rose” drop out of the sky like thunder and lightning while others like “A Thousand Miles Away” and “Last Man Alive” float effortlessly on by like clouds in a prairie sky. I don’t know what these boys have been doing with all that time between albums, but they sure as shit haven’t been messing with their tired and true formula of Skynyrd n’ Stones riff n’ roll, of Crowes n’ Cactus rock n’ soul, that’s for damn sure. Internationally speaking, I’d compare them to Canada’s Lions in the Street or England’s The Thieves, but The Brought Low are an all-out, blue collar slice of Americana pleasure pie, and Third Record should fill you up for the next four or five years. I mean, it’s gonna have to, right?

Listen to “The Kelly Rose” from Third Record!

Buy Third Record from Small Stone (when it comes out in May)!