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The somewhat oblique purple and green animal-type-thing occupying this otherwise ebony album jacket belies a record with a half-dozen smart yet accessible post-punk tunes from an Austin unit I can't find a shred of info on, save for a token Discogs entry. La Danza's moniker of choice translated into English is The Dance, the band's ep kick's off with a cut dubbed "Why Do I Disco?," and these guys (and girl) owe more than a wink and a nod to Gang of Four...yet these folks won't necessarily have you cutting a rug. Irony aside, each song on this extended player sports something of it's own personality, with the aforementioned "Disco" tapping into La Danza's emerging counterparts Pylon. Further in, the more melodic "Silhouette of a God" finagles a morsel of U2's sonic aptitude, and "Vouchsafe's" marshal rhythms suggest an appreciation for Wire, without making it too obvious. La Danza may not astound, however it manages to consistently impress.
01. Why Do I Disco?
02. Italian Song
03. Astrology
04. Silhouette of a God
05. Everything is Mine
06. Vouchsafe
A. Fire Escape
B1. What You Want
B2. California Screamin'
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01. Suzie Peroxide
02. Teenage Rampage
03. Pretty Woman
04. All the Girls in the World
05. Zoom
06. Tatto City
07. Rock Music
08. Strictly From Cough Syrup
09. New Blood
10. Take Another Look
Over the course of three dynamite records for the WB (The Muffs, Blonder and Blonder, and Happy Birthday to Me) commercially, the Muffs never really caught a break. And despite a strong emphasis on creative control and no shortage of muscular power chords our protagonists never slotted comfortably with any of the given punk sub-genres of their day, be it grunge, ska, Epitaph/Fat, post-hardcore, etc. Though I don't know the circumstances surrounding their departure from Warner Bros, such a fate often brought bands of the Muff's stature to their knees - and often to a logical dissolution. They did not in fact split up, but instead soldiered on for their first independent full length, 1999's Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow on Honest Don's Records. It would be another half decade before the world received their next Muffs fix, 2004's Really Really Happy, which has been reissued by Omnivore who've appended a half-dozen rarities from the same sessions, plus a heretofore unreleased disk of Kim's home recordings housed under the title of New Improved Kim Shattuck Demos.
Free to really let it crank and let their aggro-punk flag fly, ...Really Happy curiously enough finds the trio even more disciplined despite having regained a firm footing in indie-land. The overarching ambience exuded by the Muffs here is about as composed and linear as they've ever sounded, with leaner guitar tones and an even more economical sonic palette than what they were aiming for a decade prior. When ...Really Happy initially surfaced in 2004 it was heartening to discover the band were definitely not trying to out-heavy or out-punk themselves, but doubly more relieving was that Kim's raw vocal panache was thoroughly intact, sounding as indulgently and utterly human as ever. Not a career-defining record, ...Really Happy was nonetheless phenomenally consistent, brandishing all of the Muffs' telltale facets including no shortage of bubble-gummy overtones permeating numbers like "Everybody Loves You," "A Little Luxury," and "How I Pass the Time." Simultaneously simple yet somehow flabbergasting in its execution, The Muff's formula never yielded a completely unsatisfactory song. In addition to ...Happy's proper seventeen songs the CD version of this reissue appends three more from foreign variants of the record, along with a handful of outtakes including a primo half-minute salvo, "Just the Beginning," and the promising fragment "I Hate Gym."
Kim Shattuck passed away on October 2, 2019 after a valiant but ultimately fatal battle with ALS. Her diagnosis wasn't disclosed to the public until that time. In the liner notes to the reissue of ...Really Happy, bandmate Ronnie Barnett addresses her directly, stating that her demos were "accomplished works of her own that were truly special." Barnett was thoroughly on the money, and after hearing the New Improved Kim Shattuck Demos portion of this collection you not only get an inside seat to the makings of the record, but a sense of how strenuous her quality control was. Accompanied by basic percussion tracks, these early incarnations of the songs were largely representative of what the finished product would amount to, albeit presented in a slightly more spartan and streamlined context. We're even treated to a song that never made it past the prototype phase, the subdued "Even Now."
The nicely expanded Really Really Happy is available on double CD and a single LP directly from Omnivore or Amazon. The Kim Shattuck Demos also saw a stand alone vinyl release this past Record Store Day.
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01. Did it For Her
02. Kill or Be Killed
03. Blew Me Away
04. Get Off on Your Porch
05. Doesn't Come Around
06. In Doubt
07. Wrap Your Arms Around Me
It's been about three years since we've heard more from mercival aside from a volley of recent singles, but after soaking in 2019's rewarding the stars, like dust ep, I'm more than ready for a full length. brief algorithms is indeed the long player in question, and for these America-expats (now residing south of the border) the equation hasn't changed that much for the band whose indebtedness to Anglophile rock and post-punk is still very much the the unshakable bedrock they're wont to reside on. Managing to retain an austere poise, but breathable enough to encourage some discernible flexibility, this Mexican quartet balance the precise instincts of forebears For Against with the empathetic fortitude of the Chameleons and Catherine Wheel. They haven't completely shed the more omnipotent dream-pop sensibilities of the aforementioned the stars... ep, but I'll be damned if ....algorithms isn't a much more lucid beast, capably demonstrated on "Dance in the Dark," and the outright stunning "Dark Stars." "Be That Someone" propelled by a volley of ringing guitars is equally hard to resist, while the concluding "Cats of Cavtat" pulses along like late '80s Wire. mercvrial's overarching sonic aplomb can get a tad formulaic, but they mix things up with a couple of poignant and not-so-obvious covers, namely Pink Floyd's "Matilda Mother," and the early Ultravox chestnut "Hiroshima Mon Amour." Laudable taste for sure, given they've tackled primo signature tunes from the likes of The Chills and Fudge previously. brief algorithms, is available on the UK Crafting Room Records imprint, and can be had on white vinyl or digitally via the increasingly essential Bandcamp.
In the where-the-hell-did-this-stroke-of-genius-come-out-of-left-field-from? file, we have Washington D.C.'s Collider, who I gratefully happened on just a month ago. Let everyone else slobber on their Wet Leg and give me a coed troupe like this any day. Some thirty years ago I couldn't get enough of such heavy-handed shoegaze interpreters as Lilys and the Swirlies on my side of the pond who ingeniously tweaked what their comparatively straight-laced prodigies in the UK had bequeathed. In a nutshell, Collider are exuding a similar vibe, albeit with even more heart and sincerity. Striking a visceral charge from the word go on "Now What," you pretty know what you're in for on Fell, the band's second full length. It never ceases to amaze me what wonders a little flanged guitar and a robust array of effects pedals can do. The truth is most of Collider's nugaze contemporaries are reluctant to go overboard and really indulge, and while this foursome exercises plenty of impulse control, they're not afraid to wield a modicum of "weird" now and again. The band's creative and dynamic chops are wed to incredible melodic structures, with perhaps their only peers being Amusement Parks on Fire. Younger ears may find Fell to be something of a revelation, whereas Gen X'ers like myself will bask in a gauzy, sonic soup that's at once seemingly bygone and brilliantly refurbished. Fell can be had for a modest fee here.**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**
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For whatever the reason (a few have been speculated here) some enterprising individual in Spain seized on a way to cash in on the "wave," so to speak and orchestrated a bunch of studio musicians accompanied by a snarky unnamed mouthpiece to recreate ...Bollocks note-for-note - or at the very least as similarly as possible. This is where Los Punk Rockers, a nameless cabal of Hispanic punk interpreters swept in to fill in this perceived void. It's been rumored the perpetrators who ghost-recorded the album consisted of members of Spanish prog-rockers Asfalto. This which might explain what lends any professional sheen to Los Exitos de Sex Pistols whatsoever. The band's rhythm section is fairly tight, and whomever is mimicking Steve Jones guitar parts doesn't deliver them as robustly as the real McCoy, but close enough I suppose. As for the man they chose to put on the mic, this individual's pipes are questionable at best and demonstrably insufficient at worst. Within the first dozen or so seconds of "Holidays in the Sun" it becomes glaringly apparent that the unaccredited vocalist doesn't possess a mastery of the English language. Further into the record he seems to emanate some sort of mangled hybrid of English and undecipherable warble, the latter of which could be a dialect of Spanish that I'm unable to discern. I'll give credit where it's due in terms of this dude's overarching sneer, which doesn't quite rival Johnny Rotten's but at times sounds authentic enough.
Again, this album's sheer existence is a real mystery given that the Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks saw an actual Spanish pressing. Nonetheless, those who've been able to find a copy of Los Exitos de Sex Pistols over the years will attest that it's one of those long lost, "so-bad-it's-good" cult classics. I'm presenting it here, although I don't own an original copy, so a big thanks to whomever ripped it and provided album art. A more thorough examination of the album came be read here.
01. Holidays in the Sun
02. Bodies
03. No Feelings
04. Liar
05. God Save the Queen
06. Problems
07. Seventeen
08. Anarchy in the UK
09. Submission
10. Pretty Vacant
11. New York
12. EMI
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