I only just got hold of this one, but what I’m hearing so far, I’m liking.

I first encountered The Blind Shake a few years back, backing up the great Michael Yonkers on his more-robust-than-you-might-expect comeback album ‘Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons’, and indeed the influence of the more outgoing end of Yonkers’ oeuvre continues to be a key reference point here, as they step out on their own for their third, or fourth, or possibly hundredth, full length, but the first I’ve happened to stumble across. Which is not to say it sounds like anything in the Yonkers canon (it doesn’t), but… you know the way those solo Crazy Horse records don’t really sound like Neil Young, but they nonetheless make perfect sense when viewed as some music a bunch of Neil Young’s pals might make..? Similar deal here I think, though The Blind Shake would no doubt be rightly miffed at my flippant denial of their individual vision.

Anyway, needless to say, this is a right old heap of ugly, thunking mid-west weirdo-rock, infused with diesel-powered rustbelt sci-fi abandon and a dreadful determination to slay the audience in some regional dive bar. Little sense of any distinct personality emerges from the songs or their vocals, but hey, that’s ok – instead, wild, unguessable noise and unhinged stunt guitar fuzz/wah moves infect each track, delivering exactly the kind of synapse-fizzing skree I’m always a sucker for. Slower numbers invoke a kind of crawling Scientists/Elevators hoodoo, whilst moments elsewhere recall ‘Frankenchrist’-era Dead Kennedys or more marginal, rock-orientated punkers like The Weirdos or The Pagans. Perfect xmas sounds for the disgruntled bald man in your life, in other words.

It’s perhaps a tad too spiffily recorded and ‘competitively’ played to really compare with the chaotic grue of, say, Simply Saucer or Red Transistor in the retro-futurist outsider punk dirge sweepstakes, but nonetheless, what can I say – I kinda dig it, and if the myriad reference-points I’ve thrown out above have got your attention, maybe you will too. Track 7, ‘Young Carnival Waste’, in particular is a stunner. Further immersion needed.

Listen to some bits and bobs on the band’s site, buy from Goner for the full international  vinyl shipping experience, or maybe just give in to the budget option and get the mp3s off Amazon like I did.

Labels: best of 2014, The Blind Shake