THE FORTY BEST RECORDS OF 2010: Part Eight

Really sorry for the unacceptable delay to this final instalment, which comes even later than last year’s much delayed final instalment. Some unanticipated work deadlines are to blame. Think back to 2010 everybody, and let’s go…


5. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax (Goner)

Unlikely winners of some kind of Australian equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize for their previous album, Eddy Current are another band who can easily seem like a music writer’s worst nightmare. Four no nonsense fellas who play drums and bass and guitar and sing, making undeniably compelling and imaginative rock music, the strengths of which are sufficiently self-evident to require no further explanation. It’s exciting music, but it’s hard to communicate as much on paper. It’s really great, but I mean, god knows what the world’s few remaining legitimate music journos will do with themselves if this sort of thing catches on.

Just like 2008’s “Primary Colours”, “Rush To Relax” has proved a steady grower over the past nine months, a real staple of my trudges to and from work and round-town jaunts, regardless of season or mood. See, I’m already making it sound dull. And it’s scarcely gonna get less so when I give in to my urge to describe Eddy Current as a “real solid band”, but basically, that’s what they are, in the best possible way. The rhythm section sound amazing here, and do sterling work throughout, not being silly or drawing attention to themselves but anchoring the flow of the music perfectly, just the way they should. As on previous recordings, guitarist Eddy Current has a great, abrasive, treble-heavy tone and is always up to something interesting.

Whilst remaining broadly within the parameters of punk rock, the surprises ECSR throw our way are simple, bold and extremely effective ones – stretching one song out to seven minutes, compressing another one into fifty seconds. Dropping the bass and drums out of the mix for a verse to keep us on our toes, or ending the album with twenty minutes of the sound of waves crashing against some antipodean shore (er, somewhat less of that on the vinyl version, obviously). In a way, it reminds me of something like Alternative TV’s “The Image Has Cracked” – an attempt to move things forward and provoke new response from listeners, without alienating anybody or compromising the basic appeal of the music.

At the centre of all this, vocalist Brendan Suppression, whose contributions to previous outings sometimes seemed a tad obtuse or overly repetitive, really comes into his own as a distinctive frontman, riffing on some surprisingly personal themes in characteristically funny, straight up fashion. Although his grating, Ozzie-punk delivery is about as different as can be imagined, Brendan’s performances on this album actually reminds me a lot of Jonathan Richman on the first Modern Lovers record, spinning earnest yarns about his feelings and his exploits against the band’s rolling backing. Unlike Jonathan’s heart string-tugging teenage dementia though, Brendan seems like a classically easy-going, agreeable sorta bloke, and listening to these songs, it’s easy to imagine him strolling around his home town, mulling over the problems life throws his way, doing his best to be do good by everyone and generally live a balanced, grown up existence. Quite a refreshing stance for a guy coming from a genre whose lyrical concerns typically revolve around the hyperbolic expression of anger, misery, excess and abuse.

Given his voice and physical performance style, it would be all too easy for Mr. Suppression to lean on Rollins-style aggression as his default position, so it is nice that he has the balls to take the opposite route. It’s really sweet to hear him outline his chivalrous approach to relationship politics on “Gentleman”, and to candidly admit his failings in such on “I Can Be a Jerk”, whilst his more conventionally punk confessions of social awkwardness on “Anxiety” and the perfect under-a-minute blast of “I Walked Into a Wall” ring very true. He begins “Burn” in more of an aggro frame of mind, attacking some unspecified person for their craven untrustworthiness, only to turn things around at the halfway point, apologising to the subject for his lack of awareness of their apparent mental problems, and wishing them the best for a full recovery in the future! An astonishingly disarming gesture, and perhaps an all-time first in the long history of generic punk rock dissing songs. It is a testament to his talents as a great singer/lyricist/frontman/whatever that he manages to pull off such a self-conscious and musically unnecessary move so well, and perhaps a testament to his standing as a decent guy that he felt the need to change the song to make things clear.

I realise this probably isn’t the most thrilling review I’ve ever written, but regardless: it’s really great to have band like Eddy Current in the world right now. They don’t make one false move here, and I enjoy listening to their records a lot.

Mp3> Tuning Out


4. Overnight Lows – City of Rotten Eyes (Goner)

From November 2010:

Overnight Lows are a three-piece band out of Jackson, Mississippi, rocking that ever-popular husband/wife/drummer configuration. Their album “City of Rotten Eyes” came out on Goner Records earlier this year, and it totally destroys.

That’s about all you need to know really, and this music makes me feel like being BRUTALLY CONCISE (some hope), but it’s the least I can do to at least try to use words to sell you on a record I’ve listened to all the way through about, say, five days out of every seven for the past couple of months.

Comparable in both form and execution to the spirit of that first Thermals album, crossbred with an accidental nod or three to the “world’s fastest strumming average” ideal of Reis & Froburg’s Hot Snakes, Overnight Lows play punk rock stripped of all fat, devoid of bullshit – twelve loud, memorable, breakneck-paced songs about being angry and hating stuff. Five of them make the two minute mark. Not a clunker in the bunch, and not a slow bit or room to catch a breath either. Best walking to work music ever.
Drummer Paul Artiques plays about as is humanly possible without lapsing into hardcore/metal double kick drum territory – hi-hat going like a metronome and heavy on the ride cymbal. He is a great drummer! Marsh and Daphne Nabors correspondingly lay into things with a crazed ferocity, rather akin to the spirit of a guy on super-charged two-stroke motorbike, randomly hurling dynamite and trying to overtake a train. Recording quality is pretty good, but with everything in the room mixed WAY UP, rough edges in the playing swallowed by the feedback… and by the next verse, which has probably finished before you’ve even clocked what the hell is going on.

Like most great punk rock, each song here begins as a monomaniacal tirade about some aspect of singer’s life that s/he feels is simply intolerable and, well, just sort of continues as one really. “You’re well read / big words stuck in your tiny head / you’re well read / can’t understand what you said”, shrieks Marsh Nabors at some scholarly antagonist in ‘So Well Read’. Wait dude, what's so bad about reading books? Nothing, obviously, but if you read books and you're a JERK, well - fair game. “When I kiss your lips / all I taste is lies / I know what I’ve gotta do, and that’s sad”, responds Daphne in ‘Static Scars’. After a few dozen listens, both singers’ lyrics stand out as genuinely excellent – direct, imaginative and dryly funny, however random and unprovoked the fury with which they’re spat out may seem.

It’s funny, I could spend all day listening to contemporary albums by bands of musclebound guys effortlessly playing ‘punk rock’ music of similar volume and velocity to this, but none of it would hit me like the Overnight Lows record. What we’ve got here I think is he sound of people who WEREN’T born to play music like this, straining themselves to the nth degree to keep up the pace and take the damage, sounding like they could fall apart any second – which is fantastic, and exhilarating, and yeah – punk rock.

Mp3> So Well Read


3. Personal & The Pizzas – Raw Pie (tape on Burger / LP on Bachelor)

Thousands of groups at any given point in post-’76 time may claim to take inspiration from The Ramones, or else just flat-out imitate The Ramones, but how many can honestly say they succeed in capturing what The Ramones were about? I mean, beyond the basic template of playing fast, loud, short songs called “I Don’t Wanna do such-and-such” or “Somebody is a something”, how many bands have there been who are really able to replicate the uniquely strange feeling of that holy first album, with its weird, thudding, midtempo rhythms, its instinctive melodic bass lines and its sullen, special ed kid black humour? The sound of The Ramones before they became “The Ramones”, if you will.

I’m not saying Personal & The Pizzas are the only ones to achieve this by any means, and I guess this band have an advantage over most of their peers in that their New Jersey pedigree allows Mr. Personal (as we sadly must call him, I suppose) to mimic the distinctive cadences of Joey’s singing to an uncanny degree. But still, I am continuously amazed at how much love and attention to detail and genuine feeling P & The Ps put into their Ramonery, and how often their song-writing instincts lead them beyond simple imitation, and straight back to the source.

Ok, so I realise they’ve got a stupid, in-jokey name, and probably make their (extremely small amount of) money playing dubious scenester beer busts full of coked up, destructive duh-brains and whatever, and I know that Mr. Personal’s cringeworthy, sub-Fun Lovin’ Criminals inter-song banter is utterly beyond the pail, especially on a *recorded album* (at one point he wishes someone “a big ol’ muchos gracias”). But seriously guys – I think these songs really stand up.

Just listen to the tough, deadpan pathos of the acoustic & tambourine-based “I Ain’t Taking You Out”, the way it shifts key for its heart-rending middle section (“I took you out yesterday / and all you did was cry-ay”), or the way that hit single “Brass Knuckles” follows in the footsteps of “Loudmouth” and “Beat On the Brat”, turning the threat of violence from something alarming and sinister into a kind of hilariously unlikely affirmation of purpose (“..gonna pop you in the mouth”). “Don’t You Go in the Ground” too is a sublime piece of minimal songcraft, its poignant chant of “retard, retard, such a little retard” rising triumphantly to the declaration of the title. I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean, but the warm, welcoming feeling that emanates from the song mitigates any suggestion of malicious intent. It reminds me of hearing The Ramones for the first time, on a slightly degraded ‘best of..’ tape a friend lent me, not being able to fathom what in the hell Joey was going on about most of the time (‘Cretin Hop’? ‘Pinhead’? WTF?), but loving it anyway on some kind of instinctive, pre-verbal level.

There’s more to life than The Ramones though – there’s The Stooges too! And, as per the record’s title and cover, Personal & The Pizzas pay extensive nudge-wink homage to the James Williamson-era band here on exultant cuts like “$7.99 for Love” and self-penned theme tune “Pizza Army”, to the extent that I’m surprised Mr. Osterberg’s presumably eagle-eyed legal people haven’t been on the phone to get this shit shut down. Still, this is clearly all to the good. When in Stooge-mode, The Pizzas rock like bastards, and whilst I know you’ve gotta love Iggy sometimes, I think I’d far rather listen to these genuine carefree loons welding hunks of “Shake Appeal” and “Pretty Face..” to proclamations that their love is “..cheaper than a pencil case” than sit through whatever cash-harvesting ventures everybody’s favourite car insurance salesman / self-proclaimed great-grandfather of whatever currently has in the works.

So in conclusion: ‘originality’ be damned, there’s enough good times and good feeling and good tunes and rock n’ roll blather crammed into the extended tape version of “Raw Pie” to last a decade, and if there’s a buncha pointless crap alongside it too, well, that’s just the way they roll I guess. Along with Mean Jeans, I vote Personal & The Pizzas as the most genuinely worthwhile band to emerge from the whole late ‘00s Nobunny/party-punk wave. If you find their whole shtick a bit off-putting, well, I can’t say I blame you, but seriously – if, like me, you’re dumb enough to still have Joey and DeeDee and Iggy and Ron on the brain in the second decade of the 21st century, give this lot a shot, and I hope you won’t be disappointed.

Mp3> I Ain’t Taking You Out


2. Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be (Hozac/Sub-Pop)

When I first got this album, I was worried that maybe its appeal would kinda prove fleeting, that with a shiny sound and everything on the surface I’d kinda lose interest, despite all the attention I’d lavished on the earlier DDGs material.

But no – it’s really stuck with me. Nearly a year down the line, I think these songs are excellent, and sound amazing. I think this is a great album.

Back in May, I said some stuff about it:

“Now that we can hear the lyrics a bit better, old songs and new both reveal an unexpectedly compelling narrative aspect, transforming “I Will Be” from merely a collection of really cool pop songs into… well I hesitate to say it, but it’s sorta almost a concept album, or at least a record whose themes and images have been so carefully formulated that each track appears part of a greater whole.

From the narrator of “Jail La La”, who wakes up dazed at a strip club and winds up in jail yelling the chorus through the bars, to the rather more self-assured protagonist of “Yours Alone”, who’s known exactly what she wants out of life since the age of five, to the paranoid would-be starlet of “Line Her Eyes”, each song here seems to represent the first person statement of a different woman in a different phase of life. Factor in the brilliantly fierce 70s-era cover shot of DeeDee’s mum and the statement-of-intent title-track and “I Will Be” perhaps, kinda, sorta stands as something approaching a tribute to the struggles and achievements of 20th Century American femininity.

And, interestingly, it’s one that doesn’t seem to emerge from the overtly feminist perspective of [the good bits of] contemporary indie rock, but instead looks back with bittersweet glee at the kind of subject matter – starry-eyed teenage marriage, vicious fashion/fame-related rivalry, defining oneself as the adjunct to a male partner – that is (maybe, hopefully) less of an inevitable part of the female experience than it used to be back in the ‘50s-‘70s, the aesthetic golden age where Dum Dum Girls make their spiritual home.

So if you’re looking for a bit of honest-to-god content from your neo-girl group fuzz-pop, well look no further, but beyond all that blather I’m sure many listeners will be more concerned with the fact that just about every song on “I Will Be” is a hit in the established three chords / three verses mold, with a couple of great new rockers, and in particular, a handful of straight up love songs sweet enough to make you levitate through the skylight. “Rest Of Our Lives” in particular is incredible, with crashing percussion, swoon-inducing emotional heft and huge, swinging, r’n’b-influenced chorus-line coming together like the best bits of ‘60s and ‘00s chart pop crashing head-on and creating a song capable of reducing workplaces to dust as it blares over the AM radio in the staff-room. Or something.”

Mp3> Rest of Our Lives


1. Betty & The Werewolves – Teatime Favourites (Damaged Goods)

Well, here we go.

In all honesty, it took me about a split second to decide what my favourite record of 2010 was. Betty & The Werewolves, obviously!

It’s great to have an unquestioned favourite band (favourite contemporary band, at least) based predominantly in the same city as me, so that I can go and see them, like, twenty times. When I first saw them, supporting Holly Golightly at the 100 Club over three years ago (!!), I was all, like, wow – Betty & The Werewolves! They’re amazing! That band is just too perfect to exist! But exist they did, and when I saw them return to the 100 Club just last month, my enthusiasm had not waned in the slightest. During the interim, “Euston Station” and “David Cassidy” proved two of the best singles issued in recent years, and both of them can needless to say be found of this exceptional, instant classic, long-player from Damaged Goods.

Time and time again I’ve read venerable music journos going completely overboard in their praise for bands and local scenes to which they have some tenuous connection, so let it be said that whilst it was a massive honour to be able to appear on the same bill as them several times this year, I would love the Bettys just as much even if they were to punch me in the face and tell me never to darken the door of one of their performances again.

What more can I say that I haven’t said before? Doug is the best drummer in the world, and Emily and Laura and Helen’s distinctive styles of shouting and singing and guitaring and bassing are equally peerless. The band’s collision of hardcore punk and indie-pop remains more fun than life itself, and if one or two of the slower numbers don’t quite float my boat so much when they start to lose the former half of the equation, well at the same time you’d be hard-pressed not to recognise “Should I Go To Glasgow?” as one of the most perfectly executed Shop Assistants/Tallulah Gosh-style numbers of recent years, or that at least twelve of the album’s fourteen tracks are total killers.

Really it’s a bit like having their live set pressed on a record so I can listen to it whenever I like, and it’s great to be able to finally make out the words to songs like “Purple Eyes” and “Heathcliff” and "Francis", and, er, yeah… I’m about to grind to a halt here, so just do the decent thing and buy it already. Have a happy 2011 everybody! It’s Friday night and I’m gonna go… stop.. writing stuff. For now.

Mp3>Purple Eyes

Labels: best of 2010, Betty And The Werewolves, Dum Dum Girls, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Overnight Lows, Personal and the Pizzas