Garage rock may well be the greatest gift America has given the world. You can forget baseball, forget Hollywood and even forget that cheese of inexplicable colour and questionable origin that somehow tastes so good. Here’s why: rock ‘n’ roll as we know it was invented by bands of the Sixties counterculture like The Rolling Stones, The Who and latterly The Stooges ripping of the bluesmen of the Deep South, adding a vital sense of sex and danger i.e. what makes music exciting. Garage rock takes that basic formula but supplants it to the quiet suburbs of nowhere towns in the United States where almost nothing trumps teenaged frustration, anger and horniness, ramping up the tension and exhilaration of four simple chords like never before. That was then however. Nowadays if you want to find sex and danger in music, look no further than the Top 40. Rock ‘n’ roll has become, it would seem, safer than pop. That is, unless The Orwells have anything to say on the matter…
The Chicagoan quintet have made a name for themselves this year with an electrifying much-discussed appearance on the ‘Late Show with David Letterman’, exhaustingly hedonistic live shows and some unforgettable tunes. A good number of those songs already released make it on to ‘Disgraceland’, the group’s second LP, their follow-up to 2012’s ironically forgettable ‘Remember When’. Simple in its execution and refreshingly brash, ‘Disgraceland’ takes a step up from its predecessor by maintaining the raw, unpracticed exuberance of their debut yet focusing with laser-like precision on hooks with much of the credit to the band’s improved songwriting and producers Dave Sitek, Chris Coady and Jim Abbiss. Start to finish, this album rarely disappoints, delivering potential single after the next.
If a band is to be judged on their perceived influences, as they so often are, The Orwells couldn’t really do much better. The five piece’s sound, while not entirely derivative, is at times like listening to a distillation of every American generation of disaffected youth’s favourite bands over the last 40 years including, in order, the MC5, The Stooges, Ramones, Kiss, Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Danzig, Pixies, Nirvana and Weezer. Put together in a blender, that makes for one hell of a strong cocktail. How very much like them to down it in one. ‘The Righteous One’ has singer Mario Cuomo strutting in the verses then wailing “But it’s not fair!” over heaving guitars aping Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ when the chorus hits. The Strokesian ‘Who Needs You’ remains as thrilling an anti-call-to-arms on the hundredth play as the first. Elsewhere, the re-recorded ‘Blood Bubbles’, which first appeared on the ‘Other Voices’ EP, shows them changing pace for an epic murder ballad worthy of the queens of the genre, The Shangri-Las.
‘Disgraceland’ is not perfect however and does have its patchy moments. ‘Gotta Get Down’ is a lazy Pixies pastiche and the guitar line of ‘Bathroom Tile Blues’ owes a little too much to the Crüe’s hair metal classic ‘Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)’. This record shows scant evidence of this band being the same five kids who made their debut two years ago, such is the gigantic leap they have made, but there is one holdover: ‘Norman’, which proved to be a ‘Be My Baby’-beat too far for this reviewer.
The latter days of the garage rock revival have given us several groups from the other side of the pond like Howler and the Black Lips decent enough yet none truly capable of combining the sights and sounds of the past with the attitude and arrogance needed to be a decent rock star today. The Orwells have taken those same influences and with one eye on the present, crafted one of the most essential records of the year by being sexy, dangerous and just what rock ‘n’ roll needs in 2014. Highly recommended.
Latest posts by Elliott Homer (see all)
- ALBUM: Desperate Journalist ‘Desperate Journalist’ - January 19, 2015
- ALL TALK: What’s the Worst Cover Version ever? - December 18, 2014
- FOR THE RECORD: Lupen Crook – ACCIDENTS OCCUR WHILST SLEEPING (2006) - December 7, 2014
