Black Lips channel their 1960's pork pie plumber bum garage revivalist herion-sheik trash influences shamelessly and to great effect on their new ELPMAH (Extended Long Play Music Album for Humans...c'mon you knew that). Less of what you'd expect from their previous bluesy indie-rock inflected beer spraying "flower punk" (their own *yuck* euphemism) and more of a succession of opiate-induced hot nods to the purveyors of good types of sound like The Kinks and Velvet Underground. Things happen with music when listening. Singer Alexander Cole pays tribute to the late great Joe Strummer in track 8, BBBJOT, hijacking Strummer's trademark proncouncement of the word "fail" (as in "Rude can't fay-all").
Speaking of that track, these are some of the lyrics:
It don't matter what they say
He cant be the Jack Johnson of the day
Big, black baby jesus on the way. C'mon!
The Jesus of today. C'mon!
Do it, do it today, big, black Jesus on the way.
It don't matter what they say.
Track 11, The Drop I Hold finds Cole dropping some slow-ass drug-addled white boy rhymes over a great lazy, west-coast rhythm with a 97.1 worthy-hook. Stylistically, this song stands on its tippy toes as it refreshingly creeps up on you past the dozen plus tracks of effortless fuzzed-out drug jams. So what the hell about all this? Well they lose the disorientingly euphoric experimental loops and drum triggers (which really helped set themselves apart from the scene of snore) and plug raw into tube amps. It's nothing new, but I love the Kinks and Velvet Undergound, so to get down with some New York contemporary shitpster-ish, 20-something, fun-loving boredom crashers who drop $$$$ to get the best worst guitar tones and devote their lives to singing out of key and tapping into the pot-hazy, sexy apathy of some of the best bands of the 20th century is a thing I'll do.
try it.
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