Here’s another NYC, not Brooklyn, band that’s put out singles overseas and toured there before even making the short hop to play down here in Philly. A tried and true biz methodology now, that EMI hopes to ride into your heart. And it might just work, again.
This is a pretty fun, rocking album. Unlike all the hoo-hah way back when about the Strokes carrying on some late-‘70s Rock and Roll, NYC Punk tradition, which I proceeded to refute back in issue 1, these guys do bring to mind the second wave of bands that were around Manhattan between 1978 and 1980, those a bit more Pop-Rock oriented: bands like the Colors (see the above D.I.Y. segment), Rudies, Speedies, and even first single (American Beat) Fleshtones.
Not that they sound exactly like any of them — their buzzsaw guitar style flashes early Undertones as much as the Heroes — but they do have the same basic, energetic view of Rock and Roll with a sense of hooks.
Whether these twenty-somethings have even heard of any of those bands (minus the still existent Fleshtones), let alone heard anything by them — all that was usually left behind was one or two indie/d.i.y. singles — is for a more industrious person than me to determine.
Someone delved back to hire Leee Black Childers for photo work, a first-hand witness of that original period; and the album is co-produced by Ramones affiliated Daniel Rey (with the band).
The record kicks off with the manifesto I Live For Speed, a short two-and -a-half minute ditty that blurs by at about 69 MPH with a topping of a cracking, breathless, roughhewn, talk-singing lead vocal and shots of classic, ganged backing vocals, and a pumping, instrumental section that runs through to the end for the last minute.
Which One Of The Two Of Us Is Gonna Burn This House Down? is one of those aforementioned singles. It bounces and strains until your caught in its snare, like The Prisoner by the Clash or Favorite Thing by the Replacements, though without the implication of lyrical depth.
From there the album just speeds along, until you get to track #6, a re-write of the Hoodoo Gurus’ classic single I Want You Back called I’ll Get Her Back. They take what was a sleek, soaring thing and ground it with their inability to go sweet with their backing vocals and their slightly stilted rhythm playing.
The other cover, Wayne Kramer & Johnny Thunders Gang War’s Crime Of The Century, comes across as a bit rote and unsure. In-between there is the terse, bopping duet, à la Thunders and Patti Palladin, Science Fiction/Science Fact and the yearning, jangly, mid-tempo In Love Again, complete with handclaps.
The album closes out with The Party, an even more rawly recorded number — done without Rey; I’m guessing a demo — but snappy, with more of those handclaps & a tambourine, a breezy, mellifluous guitar solo, drop-out bridge segment and just damn fun.
The production is basic — a good thing — and crisp, with guitars and vocals up, drums a bit underneath and just the lightest touch on the vocal reverb. But as diverting as this disc is it’s not a great record, like the Knockout Pills. Though the bio says the band has been together for five years, and about two in this incarnation, they still seem to be learning their craft.
If they get out and do 200 to 250 nights of gigs for the next year or so in support of this album, the Star Spangles, if they haven’t imploded from the wear and tear and strain, should be in shape to do something wondrous.
[Released by Capitol 2003]
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