The Spiders
Sex Is Thicker Than Blood (Unscene)
The Spiders are onto something: blending Sonic Youth overtones with Led Zeppelin thump. It makes “School Night Out,” the opener of their first CD Sex Is Thicker Than Blood, a real corker, and agilely sets the table for the fusillade of Stooges attitude and Sex Pistols swagger that follows. “Cigarettes” has a frenetic Blues Explosion chaoticness, and is correct in branding the cancer stick “a little bit of drugs, a little bit of sex.” Self-avowed metalheads — for last summer’s Cheez Metal Hoot Night, they did the entire first side of Mötley Crüe’s Too Fast for Love — the San Marcos quartet places the riff above all else, as well they should. The bit of sawing on “Shrunken Sailor” could kick around your head for days, and is that Skynyrd I detect in “Art”? No, on second thought, Ronnie Van Zandt never said, “I don’t wanna be a starving artist, I just wanna be a postmodernist.” Sex Is Thicker Than Blood all right, and this album oozes both in a way much missed around here since Morningwood and Solid Gold 40 broke up. (This is also the one band Chepo Peña isn’t in that he should be in.) Singer Christopher Benedict even howls like the Wolfman on “Call Anytime.” How much more rock & roll can you get?
This article appears in November 24 • 2000.