Nashville could be the most musically diverse place on the planet. Aside from traditionally being known for country, I know it as home of scuzzy garage rock like Natural Child, Diarrhea Planet and the glam pop punk of Jeff Novak but there’s always room for duos like Ttotals on Twin Lakes Records to pull out their own creepy psych blues sound and add it to the mix.
The A-Side "Sometimes You Just Are" opens on a slow guitar picking away, awash in reverb, the bluesy definition of loneliness. The lead vocal from Brian comes in sounding like the baritone, drawn out vowel delivery of Layne Staley floating over his electric which explodes into hard pressure chords and Marty's bashing cymbal hits. The whole kit is booming as the reverb turns crunch for a few brief measures. The second time this distanced snarl comes back around they manage a funk organ melody out of heavy effects and the chorus rises higher than last time. The entire track fades out completely but it's not over, a dripping solo reverb shuffles back and Brian is chanting séances off in the forest, working in his low vocal like Rosemary’s baby circle of the devil. (According to Twin Lakes this is a secret bonus track exclusive to the release.)
B-Side's "Tricks of the Trade" has a muffled crunch vibe of electric this time and Brian goes Peter Murphy, digging deep down in that lower vibrato to pull this together. It's heavily creepy with the dark, minimal sound of Joy Division’s weird texture on the drum kit. It picks up sunglasses desert riffs with echo as it bounces off into the night. They work with that loud / quiet delivery again as if they can't help but build that tension, only for a minute though, they might anger the gods or something. But they manage to forget all that and go all out in spite of the warnings. It’s a power ending, which you have to have being a puny human just to get their attention. Giving higher powers an inferiority complex.
Screened multicolor psych printing and heavy matte black sleeve from Twin Lakes Records.
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