SXSW Records

Coachwhips

Bangers vs. Fuckers (Narnack) It should surprise no one that the Coachwhips hail from San Francisco. After all, you can practically taste the Barbary Coast whiskey-sweat and fisticuffs oozing out of your speakers during the 76-second rave up from Hades that is "I Drank What?" And you can almost catch the heady tang of a $2 blond sex-bomb lazing in the darkened doorway of your heart (what's left of it) in between the fuzz squalls of "I Knew Her, She Knew Me." What really makes this, their third album, so explosive is how easily it slips into your subconscious, into that spot reserved for those songs you just can't get out of your head, and sticks there, steely, barbed, and secreting something that's just got to be bad for you. Shrieking guitarist John Dwyer keeps things in a tinny, frenetic register befitting a disc whose 11 tracks run only 18 minutes total, while drummer Mat Hartman and keyboardist Val-Tronic do wonders with the concept of deconstructing the word precision while somehow remaining, yes, precise. Few bands can sound this utterly fucked up without being astonishingly able musicians, and the Coachwhips appear to have bypassed fucked up and gone straight to med school cadavers. No suture, no suture for you! (Saturday, March 20, 10pm @ the Caucus)