Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Little Seizures on Go Ape Records


I remember a friend once was in a punk band that wrote songs about movie villains and nerds - just completely ridiculous stuff and it was really a revelation to realize you didn't always have to be writing about serious stuff, making everyone care about every dumb relationship you ever had. Music could be about nothing but stupid fun. Little Seizures got the memo a while ago and these five dudes are obviously having fun playing the bubblegum punk on this EP. Almost the sort of thing that will always come off better live unless they manage to capture that energy like this. A little garage, but mostly the smaller, dingy bars of the lower east side. I see you Parkside Lounge.

A-Side's "Can't Take It No More" beats out the rhythm of the title lyric before this ramps up to all cylinders burning oil garage rock, the old hot rod stuff, flames and rolled up pants, grease on white shirts. Thick sounding with heavy hitting drums and massive amounts of room sound, the vocals from Tommy are placed behind the instrumentation with a snotty wink. He's pissed but this is more of a release not fueling the fire. Almost pop in places but because they really know what they're doing layering in bluesy technical solos.
"Got Me Scared" is a few decades earlier than the first track with solid, huge riff '70s fast bubblegum punk. Tommy's off in his own narrative, changing tempos from teen greaser into The Dickies. Of course it's about friends and ladies. A tough time for the characters sounding like the adverts. Classic stuff that's really well put together in the spirit of making it as catchy as humanly possible.

B-Sides "Can't Seem to Make you Mind" opens into a solo just in case you thought they were all about power chords. Tommy's into layered vocals here in a talky delivery like those '50s tracks about cars going over cliffs with boyfriends. Still anchored in late '70s style goofball bands who just finally gave into this kind of no bullshit stuff. There's even an organ break from the choppy riffs and screaming solos to make this more about just the sneering punk. "No Choices to Make" gets back to huge opening chords blasting away with kick drum thuds moving from the windmill stuff to brief bursts and if this doesn't reference a Ramones style chorus then I give up.

Pick this up from Brooklyn's own Go Ape Records.

No comments:

Post a Comment