Perfect Sweet Talk

If you aren’t in love with Austin punks Sweet Talk after their Ramones-meets-Bolan brain buzz opener ‘Someone Else’ screams out of the speakers from their new LP Double Perfect, then we probably will never be friends. Taking punchy punk and freebasing pop nous wholesale, the four-piece tracks here are fast, loose and addictive as all hell. It can be incredibly buoyant and pop-centric, almost teeth-rottingly so, but therein lies their inherent charm. Take ‘Your Touch’, the penultimate track that feels like a day-glo guitar pop pastiche, Buddy Holly on Ritalin, then floats out in an extended instrumental coda with sci-fi synth, a great bassline left to hang out on its own at the death… The band is tight, playing songs that bounce and stick (straying towards shtick without crossing that line), and held in check by a rigidity that only comes from kicking out the jams every once in a while. Double Perfect was recorded in part by Matthew Melton of Bare Wires and Warm Soda – bands also dealing in polishing the past with the fervent energy and unabashed dynamism of the present – and OBN III’s Orville Neeley, so although these songs are shiny, they retain an inherent grit. Double Perfect ain’t perfect, but is so subliminally entrenched in the rock and roll psyche of yore that your tinnitus will fall in sync with their tunes. Grab it here.

Charts Tease Buddy & Busey

I spoke about Portland band Charts some time ago, when they brought out their Birds And Bees EP. Well now another EP is on its way called Tease. Below is the instrumental title track. I love the doo wop nature of it. I recently watched The Buddy Holly Story from the 80s, when Gary Busey played him. Gary Busey killed it. My girlfriend wants to get a dog and call him Buddy Holly after Buddy Holly, but I've convinced her to call it Gary Busey after Gary Busey. I don't want anyone mistaking our dog as being a Weezer fan anyway - urgh...

Charts - Tease

Mark's Sultanic Mish Mash, Whatever And Whenever He Wants It

Mark Sultan does like to rub people up the wrong way. That said, Ive spoken to the guy a few times and found him to be an ace dude. Fair dues. The fact is, he has been thrashing the garage flag here, there and everywhere for a very long time, and is consistently producing top-shelf stuff. He is releasing two albums, titled Whatever I Want and Whenever I Want respectively. Both will come out on vinyl on In The Red Records. However, you can get a conglomeration of both albums in one package called Whatever/Whenever. Its got 7 tracks from each album, so it's basically a sampler. Really, it is good. But you need to get the albums and hear the 12 other tracks left behind! There are some Bobby Darin/Buddy Holly ghost harbouring on there, alongside many other rad touchstones, and if that sounds exciting (which it fucking should), invest. It covers every gamut of rock music, has collabs from members of Black Lips and The Spits, and promises to be seven shades of brown awesomeness.

Mark Sultan - Let Me Freeze
Mark Sultan - Axis Abraxas
Mark Sultan - Sing In Grey

Flippin' Through Some Old School Charts

Let's start afresh, shall we? Its been a few days since we posted, I apologise. So let's get reacquainted over a new band that revels in the old school house of rock, shall we?

Charts are from Portland, a rock trio that love their rock pretty olde. And their EP Birds And Bees is as indebted to Buddy Holly and the Modern Lovers as it is to Thee Oh Sees; to Eddie Cochran as it is to Black Lips; to to Arthur Lee as it is to The Dirtbombs. This is moreso a garage rock revival sound than most of the current movement, and is refreshing because of this. Six slices of 60s inflected chugging rock n roll - its a hell of a lot of fun, I highly recommend it!

Grab Birds And Bees here.

Charts - The Birds & The Bees
Charts - Slow Down Tiger

Father, Son, Holy Girls

Im not entirely sure how I feel about Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Girls' (AKA Christopher Owens) sophomore release. A lot was made of Owens's past, his childhood connections to the insidious Children Of God cult, his consequent emancipation and induction into the world of music and the result being his first foray into full-length recording, Album, being an idiot-savant's guide to the world of garage rock. It was infused with wide-eyed adoration and naivety, and as such had an infectious quality fused to the very core of it, making it an album very hard to resist.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost still has that sense of wonder about it, although it seems Owens has delved further back into the Buddy Holly era of rock. Nothing wrong with that at all. Yet this sense of backwards nostalgia doesn't always glue for me - opener 'Honey Bunny' comes across a little hokey, whilst 'Just A Song' is a mixture of Elliott Smith and 80s AM easy listening that errs on the wrong side of treacly sweet and 'Love Life' is a rip off of McCartney that is a little hard to swallow. That said, there are some crackers here - the shoegazy 'Alex', the classic rock rumble of 'Die' and 'Vomit', or the languid meandering of 'Forgiveness'.

My attraction to this album, and Girls, ebbs and flows. So it's a strange one, for he is shamelessly the myna bird of contemporary music, and in a day and age when every second band is retro or revivalist, the line between theft and reinvention is increasingly blurred. Still, it's worth having a listen, maybe picking the tracks that draw you in, and casting the rest aside - it's that kind of long-player.


Father, Son, Holy Ghost is out now on True Panther.

Girls - Vomit
Girls - Die

Bozmo In The Highest

I mentioned the Golden Feeling 7" that discordant kids Bozmo put out recently. Well, today they release their debut LP Hosanna In The Highest with a release party in Boston - if you're around, get on it! Im still loving 'Milksnakes' - a punchier, punkier number tinged with 60s pop abandon and with Belle & Sebastian style acerbic lyrics, and it deservedly opens up the album. But there are so many more great tracks - the MOR easy listening Little River Band twist with an 80s Bowie chaser of 'The Lonely Ghost'; the unhinged wails that punctuate the fun as hell 'Witchy Wu'; the Radiation Vibes era Fountains Of Wayne aura of 'Golden Feeling'... Its the various 60s guitar pop guideposts that you hear littered throughout - is there Buddy Holly and Del Shannon in 'Kill The Beast'? The harmonies that are littered throughout Hosanna In The Highest are also mightily impressive, and help to elevate this release from a good to an inherently fun album, one that Ive gravitated towards playing at the end of a day of...well, listening to music, but the fun part, when Im listening to music for me. And that is a pretty good stamp of approval if you ask me - which you didn't, but you should have.

Bozmo - Witchy Wu
Bozmo - Milksnakes