La La Land (Trance Syndicate)
“With our music and our economic changes we plunder the
unsuspecting straight world for money, and the means to carry out our program.”
The red manifesto brainwash at the beginning of this disc knows where the truth
hides. Subversion is forever. Were there any justice in this Republikan police
state, Ed Hall would be allowed to wreak wholesale singer-songwriter slaughter
in the streets of Austin. But this isn’t La La Land, so what could be more
seditious than groove? From James Brown to the Grateful Dead, groove has been
blamed for the perversion of youth – for making kids want to drink, fuck, smoke
reefer, and run wild in the streets. It’s that throb that makes your eyes close
and your mind follow the music forever, like a dumb basset after food. But this
ain’t James Brown or the Dead. It’s mid-Seventies �ber metal (“Angel”), a
l� Scorpions when they were still steel curtain Krauts out for world
domination by Panzer division instead of Hollywood butt-boys. It’s lumbering
sloth rock that grabs you with talon hooks and shakes you slowly chanting
“feeling good, feeling good now” (“HGO”) over and over until your eyes go white
and your mouth hangs open in dumbfaced submission. Sinister, wordless,
Butthelmet Scratch Lizard (“Hybrid”) complete with a fiendish intro: “I was
classed as a bad man, a charlatan, outlawed in a world of science, which
previously honored me as a genius…” Even, eh, Segovia (“Music for Couches”).
Through the haze, Larry Strub’s beating bass pulses like a human heart in your
hand, while Lyman Hardy pounds most tribal, and guitarist Gary Chester looks
for the perfect note, riffing rhythmic over the top while wheedling here,
picking there – creating a lunar guitarscape that would make the guys in Deep
Purple proud. The Austin trio’s best rekkid yet, much more song-oriented than
Gloryhole (harking back to Albert in terms of serious attempts at
songwriting) without losing the hypnotic slam flow of Motherscratcher.
And, best of all, it has a netherworld radio hit (“Pollution”) from a station
and format we all wished existed. It’s the first song, and the best. Listen to
it over and over. Atta boy. Heh, heh, heh…
3 1/2 stars – Raoul Hernandez
This article appears in May 19 • 1995 and May 19 • 1995 (Cover).