SiR

Spawn of Possession, “Bodiless Sleeper”

Every time Spawn of Possession has come up here I’ve mostly just complained about it. It’s all just from the same record, and you know what? Let’s move on.

Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators, “No One’s Gonna Love You”

A little harsh there, don’t you think? No one is going to love me? My dog thinks I’m pretty neat.

Jackintosh Plus, “Desert Rider”

Hey, it’s my buddy Jack Grimes! He did the logo for this joint, hire him for your graphics needs!

fIREHOSE, “Blaze”

fIREHOSE’s swan song was Mr. Machinery Operator, their second major label release and one produced by J. Mascis. And I think you can really hear Mascis’s influence on the record, especially on this track. It’s still fIREHOSE, but it’s much rougher, much muscular in an obvious way. I have to suspect that the grunge movement had to have had some influence on the band as well. To my ears, it’s not an entirely comfortable pairing. fIREHOSE always sounded so agile, and the fuzzier, more rugged production seems to conceal a little of that agility. I don’t know if the band felt the same, but this was it for the band. Overall, to my mind, they have two great albums and three good ones, which is a good tear by anybody’s standards.

METZ, “Drained Lake”

There’s a relentlessness in this kind of noise rock, where the songs specialize in a propulsive beat that just keeps chainsawing ahead regardless of what else is going on. I’ve compared the sound to a malfuntioning machine, and I think in both the steadiness of it and in the harshness of some of the noises it fits. Brilliant stuff.

The Squirrels, “Money”

There’s plenty of hay to be made in mocking the pomposity of big 70s rock. Punk rock, of course, is largely a reaction to it, both in defining everything the aesthetics of punk were not as well as providing a source for mockery. But it’s not limited to just punk, the bloated blimps of AOR are juicy enough targets that everybody takes a shot.