Purling Hiss:
Weirdon:
Drag City:
CD/LP/DD:
Out now:
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Those expecting an assault on the eardrums from Purling Hiss's follow-up to 2011's Water On Mars might be enlightened with Weirdon's pop sensibilities. Or disappointed, depending on your bent. Personally, I enjoyed getting my weirdon, so to speak - the power trio have turned up in beach-shorts, smoked a few surf sheroots and turned out a decent album.
From the album's opening fuzzy stomper Forcefield of Solitude, through what has to be a single, the riffed-up, ripped-out Learning Slowly and on to the joyous ramshackle garage-pop of I Don't Wanna Be A ... , there are some stone-wall tunes in them thar grooves (if you buy the vinyl). In fact, this is an album you really want to hear blasting out of an amp on a stage in a tiny intimate venue on the wrong side of town, with your head full of elation and your stomach full of beer.
Little of Weirdon is polished - the free-falling lo-fi tendencies of earlier material still holds sway here - but the songs are well-organised, tuneful beasts and sometimes recall woozy guitar-favouring acts such as Parma Violets, Ultra Vivid Scene, Velvet Underground and Ty Segall, demonstrated ably on Reptili-a-genda (very Kurt Ralske, it must be said) or Where's Sweetboy (getting their Drenge on). And on Six Ways To Sunday they out-riff Pixies with a tympanic outburst fit for champions.
Although the production borders on muddy in places, there's no doubt about the band's ability to turn a tune and hold your attention. Good album.
Weirdon:
Drag City:
CD/LP/DD:
Out now:
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
From the album's opening fuzzy stomper Forcefield of Solitude, through what has to be a single, the riffed-up, ripped-out Learning Slowly and on to the joyous ramshackle garage-pop of I Don't Wanna Be A ... , there are some stone-wall tunes in them thar grooves (if you buy the vinyl). In fact, this is an album you really want to hear blasting out of an amp on a stage in a tiny intimate venue on the wrong side of town, with your head full of elation and your stomach full of beer.
Little of Weirdon is polished - the free-falling lo-fi tendencies of earlier material still holds sway here - but the songs are well-organised, tuneful beasts and sometimes recall woozy guitar-favouring acts such as Parma Violets, Ultra Vivid Scene, Velvet Underground and Ty Segall, demonstrated ably on Reptili-a-genda (very Kurt Ralske, it must be said) or Where's Sweetboy (getting their Drenge on). And on Six Ways To Sunday they out-riff Pixies with a tympanic outburst fit for champions.
Although the production borders on muddy in places, there's no doubt about the band's ability to turn a tune and hold your attention. Good album.