The Gunga Din Glitterati (Jetset)
SXSW Records
Reviewed by Marc Savlov, Fri., March 10, 2000
The Gunga Din
Glitterati (Jetset)
Big guitars make my mama cry, and mama's dam's a-burstin. That might as well be a lyric from vocalist/chanteuse Siobhan Duffy, but it isn't. These big guitars -- from New York, not Texas -- rock and stomp with all the swaggery bravado of a two-bit tin star resting in the dust after a particularly one-sided outlaw firefight. The GD's corral is definitely not okay. Part early X, a tad Rank & File, and a smidge Concrete Blonde, the Gunga Din collide thick, chunky swirls of post-Sixties sleaze rock with Duffy's seething, smokey vox and come up with a nasty, sexy bit of rave-up. Guitarist Bill Bronson knows his way around a thick, dark lick: on "Mama" his crunchy chordwork reaches a blistering crescendo that matches ache for ache Duffy's plaintive yelp. Drummer Jim Sclavunos, who's served percussionist time with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and Sonic Youth in the past, makes the most of the Gunga Din's eerie wall of sound, while organist Mario Zastrow bests Ray Manzarek in the How Psychedelic Can Your Farfisa Sound? department. All in all, a punchy little slice of bad karma that kicks and judders like a gutshot rebel, scuffed boots and all. (Emo's, Wednesday, Mar 15, Midnight)
