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We
Can Be Our Heroes
 The
Icarus Line
Penance Soirée (V2)
By the time Joe Cardamone gets around to urging “take off
all your clothes” on “Party the Baby Off,” the closing track
from the Icarus Line’s sophomore release, Penance Soirée,
lord knows you’re probably already buck naked. It’s a compact
anthem, glam as fuck, like Thin Lizzy on crack, and a fitting
bookend to one of the most adventurous records released on
a major label (V2 is under the much larger tent of BMG) in
recent memory.
Right out of the gate, Penance makes a claim for best
rock record of the year, just as much as the band members
themselves believe that they are the best rock band in the
world. This is attitude-heavy, rough-and-tumble, ear-splitting,
slimy-and-sleazy rock & roll, and it works awfully well
for the most part. Penance’s pacing is like that of
a great live set—it starts off over-the-top, in your face
and on your jeans (“Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers,” “Spit
On It”), then pulls it back for a while before blowing it
all out for the last stretch. Culminating in the pleading
refrain, “Never give up on me, baby,” the nine-minute epic
“Getting Bright at Night” is pure VU, right down to Cardamone’s
pedestrian croak, before it darts off into Primal Scream territory
for the last section. The band’s admitted Stooges jones—Fun
House would likely top all five members’ lists
of favorites—pops back up on “Big Sleep” and “White Devil.”
The Icarus Line are expert chameleons. They can pull off a
glam-rock Melvins (“On the Lash”), Mission of Burma covering
Black Sabbath (“Virgin Velcro”), or the Radiohead that Radiohead
can’t seem to do themselves anymore (“Caviar”). At times,
the hero worship is so prevalent, one might forget that one
is listening to a new, original band. That’s the only serious
bone of contention here. The grainy vocal effect that’s splattered
all over Cardamone’s voice on half of the album? Nothing a
hundred other bands haven’t used to similarly grating effect.
The saggy couple of tracks that bog down the album’s home
stretch (“Meatmaker” is abrasive and hardly musical)? That’s
why we have the “skip” button. Now if these guys can learn
to blaze their own trails without using their record collections
as a map, they could be as important as the very bands they
adore.
—John
Brodeur
Party
Party Party
34 Raw, Ruthless and Rugged Sixties Garage
Rockers (Arf! Arf!)
Sigh
Cry Die
29 Tales of Woe and Despair from the Sixties
(Arf! Arf!)
In the wake of the British Invasion, thousands of bands sprang
to life in basements and garages across America. These bands
were the foot soldiers of the music industry, nearly all of
them disappearing into obscurity, with but a lucky few rising
through the ranks to prominence beyond their school district,
township or tri-county area. Astonishingly large numbers of
them managed to get a 45 or two released. On tiny labels and
in small quantities, these rare remnants of their existence
take on a new allure as collectors bid up the values. Happily,
compilation albums have been offering an affordable way in
for the more casual music traveler.
A pair of new CDs celebrate the two contrasting aspects of
garage bands: fast songs and slow songs. Granted, the titles
of each set allude to the elements of heartbreak and funtime,
but it still boils down to those two speeds. Think of garage
bands as a simple and durable machine, and you can see why
they endure. Slightly more complex than a shovel, but more
streamlined than a lawn sprinkler, these things just don’t
break. Sure, all of the bands on these two sets broke up,
but they were replaced by the next legion of budding (and
usually only temporary) musicians. Garage bands, in whatever
changing styles may occur, will last, because it’s the way
for emerging players to spread their wings, and to do so behind
the more protective front of a group identity.
The relative anonymity of these groups is underscored by the
label’s decision to present the band names and song titles
in a font size smaller than their boiler plate info and mailing
address. The mystery remains intact as the scant info on those
original 45s is maintained here. But remember, these are foot
soldiers and it’s not about their individual names as much
as the force of their combined efforts. Many of these bands
said all they had to say with one single—Johnny & the
Uncalled For would’ve been hard-pressed to top their version
of “Shortnin’ Bread.” These songs are a reflection of what
was pouring forth from radios in the mid-’60s. Besides assorted
domestic outfits, shades of Animals, Kinks, Yardbirds, Rolling
Stone and Beatles abound, with the latter being fully quoted
in a couple numbers (“Nobody Else but You” by the What-Nots
and “The Ralphie” by Four Rogues). Subtlety is not a component.
In fact, the only subtle element associated with these 63
songs is the title Sigh Cry Die, which finds all three
words rhyming, though each with its own route to achieving
that “y” sound.
—David
Greenberger
 Morrissey
You Are the Quarry
(Attack)
Morrissey is frequently at his best when all torqued up into
some grand-mal hissy fit against a cosmic wrong. So when the
righteous indignation of “Irish Blood, English Heart” hit
alternative radio in advance of You Are the Quarry,
it seemed he had finally (seven years after his mediocre prior
album) returned to the form of his early solo work (if not
the uncanny stratosphere of the Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead).
“Irish Blood, English Heart” is Morrissey at his bitch-slappy
best. And most economical: screeching to a halt at 2:30, it
builds toughly and dramatically into wound-up guitar roar
and Union Jack evisceration, with Morrissey all indignant
underbite and nasty gleam. It seems he’s often at his best
when, all feasibility aside, he simply wants to kick some
ass. (“Irish Blood, English heart, this I’m made of/There
is no one on Earth I’m afraid of,” he purrs ominously in the
opening lines.)
Nevertheless, the rest of the album is a mixed equation: often
musically and lyrically potent but also occasionally opaque
on both counts. Or downright lame, as in the hamfistedly bleeding-heart
sentiments of “America Is Not the World” (Example: “In America,
they brought you the hamburger/Well America, you know where
you can shove your hamburger”). Lyrically, Morrissey has been
many things—oblique, poetical, bizarrely pretty—but never
contrived. At other points, the singer’s lounge- crooner-for-the-fringe-set
pose is overused and ineffective (“I Have Forgiven Jesus,”
“Come Back to Camden,” “Let Me Kiss You”).
But then the Mozzer hits you with “First of the Gang to Die,”
the kind of infectious, upbeat tragedy that is his hallmark—but
it’s an interesting evolution: Whereas his former character
sketches involved Mancunians or Londoners in a fit of weirdly
obsessive pique, now, symptomatic of his new zip code, he
turns toward the gang-filled streets of his expatriate roost
in L.A. (“Hector was the first of the gang with a gun in his
hand”). The song also seems a nod toward Morrissey’s cult
following among Mexican-American hepcats. This track, along
with “Irish Blood” and “I Like You,” show Moz re-ascending
his creative peak. And considering the diminishing returns
of his ’90s albums, this is welcome comfort.
One of the distinct characteristics of the album is also the
more accessibly personal lyrics (especially the career-scrutinizing
“You Know I Couldn’t Last”). Nevertheless, Morrissey still
remains a powerfully oblique question mark outside of genre,
or even the influence of professed heroes (New York Dolls,
Charlie Feathers). He has built his own world around weird,
unquiet desperation, more-than-able collaborators (Johnny
Marr with the Smiths and Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer in his
solo years), a wicked, underestimated sense of humor and an
utterly original set of vocal tics (vulnerably swooning falsetto,
spat-out poetical nastiness and this kind of thing: “Away-ha-hey-ha-hey-ha-hey”).
And perhaps, just in the nick of time, he’s becoming interesting
again.
—Erik
Hage
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