Heard Here

UFO Romantics, Guitar Wolf

You know that any band that wears full leather outfits in what appears to be Brazil for their album art doesn’t mess around. You can practically taste all the sweat and dirt and hair grease on this album. Even the most primitive sounding of the current “rock revival” bands can’t really touch Guitar Wolf. The attitude and brutal sound of the once plentiful all-American garage band are all over this disc, which is funny because Guitar Wolf are Japanese. Proof positive that the country that supposedly invented this whole rock and roll thing could afford to come down off its high horse and take a look around.
What about the brazen rock attitude of The Strokes you say? Please. UFO Romantics has 100 percent more feedback than Is This It. What about the lyrical quirkiness of The White Stripes? Forget it. Guitar Wolf doesn’t need major label record deals, slick production or even stereo recording to know they are bad ass. The whole record sounds like it was recorded in mono, except for occasional screaming that takes up both channels. And while too many hip neo-garage bands toy with lyrical complexity, Guitar Wolf is refreshingly unrefined. Actually, they could be reciting Shakespeare for all this reviewer knows, since all the lyrics are in Japanese except for the initial “one, two, three, four” count off that precedes most of the songs, the occasional “all right,” or “baby” and the song titles that serve as choruses. But what else do you need, really? Who wants to pay attention to a full song’s worth of lyrics when screeching feedback and shouts of “Alcohol Ace” get the job done? Guitar Wolf seems to pull off the complete condensation of all the right elements of rock and roll their peers seem to have forgotten as they get major label record deals and MTV airtime. Rock and roll may not be dead quite yet, but it’s because there are bands like Guitar Wolf to remind us how it’s done.

—Derek Schleelein

In House We Trust 2, Behrouz & MV (Envy)

For most people, the only things that separate one DJ from the next are the songs that each DJ plays. Thus, there exists the fallacy that anyone can be a DJ — you just need to get your hands on the right vinyl, and you’re ready to hang with the big boys. More than anything else, In House We Trust 2 shows that such a belief is just as absurd as your talentless friend saying, “Give me a guitar and I’ll play you ‘Purple Haze.’ ”
Because all of the material on this two-disc compilation is culled from the Yoshitoshi/Shinichi labels’ back-catalogs, it represents somewhat of a controlled experiment in which Behrouz and MV must mix their magic from similar source material. What results, then, is the sound of these two up-and-coming DJs apart from their record bags — their style, their feel, and their sense of groove — the things that truly separate one DJ from another.
According to Behrouz “a good DJ tells a story,” and his programming on disc one is indeed quite a story. In what is undoubtedly one of the most contoured and daring mixes of the past year, Behrouz traverses an impressive amount of musical ground — everything from Narcotic Thrust’s “Safe From Harm,” to Humate’s “Choose Life,” to Chiapet’s “Tick Tock.” It goes from Point A to Point Z and covers every one of the other 24 letter-points in between. At times the set feels a bit rushed, but every clubber knows that 80 minutes is far too short for a good story.
In complete contrast, MV’s second disc is flat, lukewarm and utterly by the book. Though there’s no shortage of quality deep and tribal house tracks — Morel’s “Funny Car” and Rob Salmon & Rob Rives’ “Body Talk” stand out — the disc never really does anything; it never really goes anywhere. MV listlessly strings one record after another (killing each groove in the process) without any sort of meta-perspective on the flow or the energy of his set.
Ironically, then, the tracks on this Yoshitoshi label showcase take a back seat to the talent of the DJs (or, their lack thereof). Each DJ had access to some of the finest house music around, and yet Behrouz and MV demonstrate how little record collections can matter. What really comes through is that the separation between great DJs and mediocre DJs rests in their knowledge of how much to mix, when to mix and how to mix it. In other words, a good DJ knows how to tell a story.

—Greg Teves

Love and Distortion, The Stratford 4

It’s not surprising that The Stratford 4, a band whose lead-singer and guitarist Chris Streng used to jam with future members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club before they formed their present line-up, would be inspired by a comparable set of stoney-eyed Brits from across the pond. If there’s anyone that’s proved Anglophilia can be a good thing it’s BRMC. The recent success of their self-titled debut married the best British rock in the last decade with a distinctly American attitude. On their second LP, Love and Distortion, the Stratford 4 turn a similar trick. My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride and to a lesser extent, Spiritualized, can all be found in Streng’s mopey drawl and lead-guitarist Jake Hosek’s church-bell fuzz.
Though their debut, 2002’s The Revolt Against Tired Noises, made use of both indie-pop attitude and Brit-rock melodic sensibility, Love and Distortion places itself firmly in the realm of the latter. The opening track is pure-grade Shoegaze. With Streng waxing existential and Hosek’s reverb-heavy six-string flying high, “where the ocean meets the eye” is the best song Ride never wrote. The wistful romanticism of “twelve months” and “tonight would be alright” are similarly satisfying, if a bit premature. And Streng’s honesty on “the simple things are taking over” and “telephone” is refreshing amidst his band’s turgid Brit-rock posing. The latter tune’s description of a phone conversation between Streng and his mother is especially endearing as she reminds her pop star son not to forget about Dylan and the Stones, noting that “when I was 22, I was a lot like you.”
Only rarely, though, does Streng pull forth enough charisma to make his mates’ unremitting psychedelia worthwhile. All too often Love and Distortion just sounds like a band throwing effect after effect onto songs that would fail to stand alone without the reverb turned up to 11. Many artists, including a few you’d find in this crew’s record collection, made brilliant records running everything but the kitchen sink through their amps, but The Stratford 4’s relentlessly layered sound fails to give their meek tunes much room to breathe.
If these four co-eds can add some dynamics and song-writing ability to their well-honed space-rock sound, then we might get a record that actually goes somewhere worth seeing when the band’s epic fuzz soars above the cloud-line. But for now, we should at last be grateful that The Statford 4 are bringing back a Brit-rock sound young America has precious little experience with.

—John MacDonald