Splattering open the second half of Matador’s thrillingly dank Casual Victim Pile, Love Collector‘s boy/girl bar grind goes Beatles butcher cover on My Baby Goes Waaah! for Minnesota’s Big Action Records. A hot mess of DIY petroleum and punk waaah, the fiery four throw baby, bathwater, and beer at the titular A-side, while fitting a pair on the flip, fist-pounding “Tell Me” and gas-huffer “Come Back.” Australian Cattle God suggests one “Imagine Robert Rodriguez remaking Tron” apropos of a two-song tease to new Woodgrain LP The Bronze. Dueling keys fry the fourpiece’s “Selsun” and especially prog spank “Coal Lampin’.” The Kill Spectors‘ two-man, two-tune, too-cool gray-marble vinyl single, summoned at Sweatbox with sweathog Mike Vasquez for the Española Recording Compania (Kemo Sabe Publishing), indeed kills. Frankie Medina’s finest Iggy Stooge vox rumba meets Keith Herrera’s knee-knocking thump, “Red River Street” rollin’ a big beat Dylan noir about war, women (“there she was in the camera eye, she was a 10 or a nine, I wouldn’t lie”), and broken strings. “Live Like a Dog” chomps a Black Keys calf. Killing. Cruddy barks six songs at 45 rpm for Let’s Pretend Records from Lt. Col. Henry Blake’s (M*A*S*H) hometown of Bloomington, Ind. ATX burst from the Alison-beat trio throbs primal, “Berlin Wall” (“my brick, my brick, my brick”) and “Running Rats” beating hasty retreats, while the B-side administers its own beating (“Ready Set Let Go”). Rare beast: a Super Secret Records single without color somewhere in its run. Nevertheless, Lovetaps‘ eponymous, jet-black 7-inch, “Love ‘Em or Leave ‘Em” b/w “Goodbye Sunshine,” bangs garage doors and jangles Byrdsian bells (yells) of Rhymney. Blue vinyl and 12 inches from Austin’s Chicken Ranch Records separates Beautiful Supermachines‘ tuneless Consumed EP, “Radical Subjectivity” featuring Matador avatar Gerard Cosloy on guitar, and the Distant Seconds‘ Hot Buttered Anomie EP. Another Casual Victim Pile warm body, the Distant quartet’s song trio here taps a Spoon or two, transference in frontman Matthew Baab’s vocal abrasion. 1980s UK: “(I Don’t Want to Go Back to) Memphis.”
This article appears in January 29 • 2010.
