CQ Records sent in their latest single from Love Collector, a three piece out of Austin, who've been playing in various awesomely punk titled outfits around town... my favorite being The Shitty Beach Boys. They've played as Love Collector at Gonerfest and SXSW and are drawing from the sort of paper thin rowdy garage rock like the Reatards, Oblivians or Dirtbombs. Recorded with one thing in mind...to try and capture the raw, spontaneous sound of shifting, impermanent punk.
A-Side's "Human Bodies" can't be recorded any other way or you'd start questioning the whole sentiment - it's down and dirty punk, recorded in a rehearsal space, or spare shack, vocals barely rising above the slappy snare and electrocuted guitar. Shawn is singing through a tin can with all the sloppiness and uncalculated genius of Liquor Store. There's even a broken phaser effect on this canned guitar and Shawn is singing about something in a basement where they're probably doing bad things to people down there. A poppy upbeat solo sounds demented alongside the stark, bare bulb snarly vocals coming from a hole in the sheetrock. They like to use that bashing caveman beat, all snare and kick all the time, both at once. "You Drain My Batteries" feels '70s English, screaming BATT-ER-REEYS this is a blur of ham fisted chords and things put on the table as quickly as possible. As if they were just trying to get it down before they lose it. The swirling guitar is back, positively yelling, they won't let you get your own thought in edgewise. That phaser makes it's way over to the vocals as they run out of energy....and ....slow...to.... a ....crawl.
B-Side "Non Stop Love" goes NoBunny in a more recently garage way instead of the late '70s punk sound on the A-Side. Still lots of attitude but more space around these guitars, bigger buildups, still built on matchsticks that are quickly heating up. They've managed to capture that racket of the kick drum hit right into a ton of distortion, an all chorus sound with everyone singing along right from the beginning. I want them all to start like this. Nothing like taking it down to this base level, the primal area it lives in. All emotion and reaction, not the lyrics or even thinking. "Circuit breaker" is back in hyper energy again thinking about these modern things we're tied to. You can't blame these guys for trying to figure out what we're so crazy for, electricity, batteries...what's with power? That slight phaser rearing it's head - I think they've upped the energy here, and about to trip that breaker again actually. It's weirdly almost like Plastic Passion, a little less reverb here, but that same weird post punk sound, almst clean ... deliberate and alien, but they are way more punk here than those guys ever were. A tiny bit of that weirdness from the early singles.
Marble chewing gum color vinyl with download card and almsot NSFW reverse sleeve from CQ Records.
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