Pillow Talk
Downtown Unga Wunga

All you minimal synth freakers out there working on your seventh album, pay attention. This is how you’re supposed to be doing it. Make it weird and sinister, not geeky and diffuse. Figure out your gear, get your shit straight and gain a mastery of your setup. Disregard everything. Sound unhinged, unemployable, and fucked up. Play like you’ve actually had sex with the partner of your choice in the past few weeks. Fuck with everything visual so that your artwork is alternately memorable and mundane. And be sure to put a locked groove at the end of each side. Maybe then you could stand up to Pillow Talk, who’s made the best electronic/synth/punk/drug jammer for since Spider. Finding records like this is the reason I keep writing through all the lousy ones. Scorching. SHOCKING. A must-own. Still Single

El Jesus de Magico
Scalping the Guru

Two phenomenal sides of adventurous and wandering psych-rock from this Columbus outfit who delve deep into fried soundscapes, hypno-guitar, trance-inducing electronics alteration/drone and subliminally hard-hitting songs. I was never expecting this to be as good as it is, but repeated 3:00am listening sessions keep me riveted. One of the few albums of recent months that I actually find myself looking forward to settling in and listening to late at night. These guys go out there, but no too far "out", if you're picking up what I'm putting down here...There's always something to keep the listener grounded, even when they venture into alien landscapes. Hypnotic, with reverberating dub-like interjections, vocals from a man lost in space, but rooted enough in earthly rock to keep a conventional guy like me on the ship. Far fucking out and full of diversions and effects to make each listen better than the last. I hesitate to write about records such as this at times, as I never feel knowledgeable enough about this type of out-sound. But can you ever know enough? Reference points for me would be MX-80 and maybe Prince Far I...it's a lot of everything. It does exactly what I wish a lot of touted modern-pysch bands would do: leave my brain scorched every time I put it on. 300 copies only, which I think is a couple hundred too few. More people should be feeling this record. (RK) Terminal-Boredom

Outer Spacist
The Mind is as Outer Space b/w I Talk with Telepathy Baby

Getting us started this week is the debut offering from Columbus stargazers Outer Spacist, “The Mind is as Outer Space” b/w “I Talk with Telepathy Baby” on Columbus Discount Records. True to their name, they do seem to be from another planet entirely, albeit one populated by the ghosts of ’60s psych lords like The Seeds, Roky Erickson and Strawberry Alarm Clock. The A-Side is cut at 45, the B-Side at 33, which, if your not paying attention, drastically changes your initial impression of the flipside. Anyway, the A-Side is a sizzling romp, an acid-fried guitar rave-up accentuated by fat organ stabs, wildly oscillating synths and vocal histrionics the bridge the gap between Iggy and Black Randy. The B-Side is just as stunning, beginning life with a strange interpolation of “We’ve Only Just Begun”. then blasting itself into the cosmos on a stuttering backbeat and a skuzzy wall of shimmering, reverb-laden guitars and amazing lyrics like, “i’m a motherfucking space man, baby” (or that’s what it sounds like he’s on about) before the whole thing disintegrates into a raygun-wielding outro that sounds like someone hitting Buck Rogers with a sledgehammer. These are still available direct from CDR, or from your favorite local purveyor of the phonographic arts. the trip wire

Dan Melchior und das Menace
Mr. Oblivian b/w Piledriver Nitemare #2

Sounding like an orphan who bounced between the foster homes of Billy Childish and Mark E. Smith before eventually stowing away on a ship that eventually docked in port port somewhere along the deep south in the US Dan Melchior has always found a way of doing a convincing balancing act between the abstract & arty and the down & dirty. "Mr Oblivian" is an exercise in such an act and what a good one it is. His Medway Delta foghorn of a voice bellowing while Das Menace supply the likes of a New Orleans funeral band bent on bitterness and organ grinder music. Since there are no carnival instruments handy they emulate the sounds to the best of their ability with whatever beat up guitars and drums that were lying around. The flipside's "Piledriver Nightmare #2" slowed way down swamp rock can get some thinking the Cramps meets the Country Teasers but in the end there's a stamp (or is that STOMP...or maybe even stumble) that is Melchior's own. smashintransistors

Various Artists
Columbus Discount Singles Club Year One (CDRSCY1!)

Our first single of the month club. It ran from August of 2008 until September of 2009.

It featured the following bands...
Pink Reason, El Jesus de Magico, The Harrisburg Players, Sandwich, The Unholy Two, Dan Melchior und das Menace, Guinea Worms, Mike Rep, TV Ghost, Little Claw, Cheater Slicks and Psychedelic Horseshit

It is sold out, but there are subscriptions avaliable for CDRSCY2!

Full List of CDRSCY1! Singles Here.

Mike Rep & the Quotas
Songs The Grackles Liked

Mike Rep is always a welcome name and when it is attached to the QUotas I eye the turntable in such a way that can only be described as "disturbing".  This way way way too brief four song EP is a great piece of mid Seventies-style indie rock, the kind of private press sounds that were ignored by punkers of the day and now make record geeks wet.  It is a sound that is uniquely American, drawing from Creedence, Gram Parsons, and Neil Young - and, given a twist, you hear it in everything from the Twinkeyz to Giant Sand.  Now with all this gibberish abour muso o' yore, please don't think that Rep & the Quotas are on some nostalgia trip.  Nah, the four songs here might sport a classic sound, but they ain't growing moss.  This rock does roll.  I take the record off the turntable reluctantly. the z gun

The Unholy Two
Kutter b/w Porky$

The beginning of "Kutter" is a near rip of the Clone Defects' "Scissor Chop" and that is fine with me as dats one of da best songs of the Nineteen-nineties. But when I thought this was gonna lurch into some Brainbombs gruntage, The Unholy Two flies into Science Fiction Comic Book Land--a kinda galloping thuggery that rides on a defective laser beam. In this hard-to-alienate-the-parents world, this is a record that will annoy ma & pa. As I am for anything that reestablishes punk rock's secret musical cult, I very much endorse this damage. Excellent. the z-gun

The Electric Bunnies
Fantastic Metal Eye

Who knows if the three songs that Miami’s Electric Bunnies submitted to Columbus Discount are months old toss-offs or signifiers of where the trio are headed, either way it’s puzzling, as the low-key Fantastic Metal Eye 7” keeps the ball rolling for one of the underground’s most puzzling little bands that could. They rarely tour, so I’ve yet to recognize faces, only rudimentary, almost precious animations of, you guessed it, bunnies, and on this slab, cutesy androids. The title track here is vocoded monotony/propaganda about imagined “sweet robots” or “loose robots", though they relapse into momentary Trans Am love, the throb underneath grows and grows with each measure, then at the last minute a release is found and the Oneida-esque build bursts the transistors wide open and wires start flailing about. I’d like to think the Bunnies never even heard of TA and instead worshipped the gutting electronics of Tim Taylor. Fantastic Metal Eye is off-putting fer sure and compiling a singles comp. of everything we’ve heard thus far would be disorienting (a comp. of ten different bands?), at any turn you’re not sure where they stand. “Bubble Bath” in particular should be, so far, the band’s calling card, as it rides a one-legged psych groove that drills down like a teen-aged Wooden Shjips spiralin’ minimal disco-funk, wrapped precociously in two sheets of haze and feedback squealing. The distance between this and the hummable confections of “Chewing Gum” and “Eskimo” throws me way off course. Maybe they’re the crunk TV Ghost. Only time will tell. That leaves me with “Beautiful Pants,” the last thing we’re given till a full-length (supposedly), and what we’re left with is an angry atonal outburst that owes a fuckton to Wire. Quick and to the pointless, still rooted in their own putrid innocence, and by god I’d much rather have a band owe the fuckton to Wire than most other bands in the post-punk cannon. world of wumme

Tommy Jay
Tom's Tall Tales of Trauma

The Columbus Discount label has released a trio of new vinyl that have all made a lasting impression, one of which predates the label itself. Recorded mostly throughout the 80's (one track bein from '74) Tommy Jay's Tall Tales Of Trauma spent many yrs as an acorn (that's Woodbe code for cassette-Capt'n Siltbreeze) before the CDR crew seen fit to let it grow into the majestic oak it always has been. Some may know Tom's work as a collaborator 'n agitator to Mike Rep & I'd bet there's even some of you's what recall his True Believers 7", 'Accept It' on Rep's Old Age label from the early 80's. You might say Tall Tales is an extension of that record, albeit a more personal endeavor. Throughout the yrs of hearin it on tape I'd always looked at it like one man's attempt to make his own version of 'Berlin'. In the world of Lou Reed fans that's a record that seems to be either loved or reviled & in the hamlet of Harrisburg, Ohio it's no secret which side of the line these guys stand behind.Take away the Bob Ezrin production, the maudlin, heavy handed sap & snark of Lou's amphetamine ego & hey, I'd say you got as pretty close doppelganger. There's all sort's of sweet overdubs that makes this DIY effort so protean whether they be strings, keyboards, the odd creak or a fluttering woodwind. And in the middle of it all is Tom's vocals & arrangements, standin hard, like a moden day Prometheus. 'Tall Tales' ain't exactly the fire stolen from Zeus, I mean, Lou's 'Berlin', but it was sort've hidden from most humans for many yrs. Thankfully the format it has so richly deserved now claims it as one of it's own. It's a grower that knows no limits. siltblog

Guinea Worms
Box of Records

Guinea Worms are a Columbus mainstay what's released a slew of cdr's through the yrs but only 1 7" I knowed about before this one come into the fold. I don't know if it's the Rep LFW 'production' but the a-side ('Box Of Records') is a solid slab of Screamin Mee Mee's styled cheeseburger sludge that slides down the gullet like a sack've of White Castles. The flip (I'm A Cobweb') is another past soundin blaster, this time conjurin up Clevo art skronkers, Modern Art Studio & it has been a long time since I thought of them. siltblog

Necropolis
Song For a Workingman b/w Cocksuckerbastardmotherfucker

Maybe it will come as a shock to you, but not all the equipment here at the Maximum house works properly. This isn't the fiirst time I've listened to this record, but it is the first time I've listened to it coming out of just one speaker. If you're familiar with NECROPOLIS, you might think that wouldn't affect the listening pleasure all that much. Not so! How can one enjoy the push/pull, claustrophobic, clanging, and monotonous, senselessness of "Cocksuckerbastardmotherfucker" on only one speaker? You can't. After fixing the problem on our end I can full appreciate the hopelessness that the flip projects. Both sides of this release are good, but the B-side really sticks out as the sound of knuckle-dragging desperate times. maximumrocknroll

Necropolis
Stumpf b/w Van v. Art

The band's third release in three years also features their third lineup -- talk about your punk trifectas, the only thing that could have made that better would have been three songs on the release instead of just two. Recorded live to four-track at the band's home, a decaying house over a hundred years old, the band (now a five-piece) sat down shortly after the inclusion of its new members and reeled off the two tracks here with no regard whatsoever for "proper" recording techniques. The result is two bracing, loud, and sonically incoherent (in a good way) tracks that don't wear out their welcome (both songs play out in less than five minutes). Art-damaged punk by way of extremely devolved surf rock, the band's emphasis on rhythm separates them from a lot of other noisy punk bands -- they may sound fucked up, but their action is tight, dig? They're also focused, which keeps the songs from meandering (although it helps a lot they play like they're all hopped up on caffeine, if not other considerably less legal stimulants). Bonus points for the shrieking singer, who consistently sounds like he's one baby step away from throwing his mike stand down and going off to do something foolish that might get him locked up. the one true dead angel

Grafton
Jumpstart Wire

These guys have been kicking around Columbus, Ohio for over ten years now and though I've heard OF them this is the first time I've heard them. Even though their mailing address is in the southern regions of the "midwest" ya might wanna check yr map to make sure cuz Grafton do make some type of Rust Belt Rocket Racket. Granted, A LOT of dudes go out and learn a song or two off 'Raw Power', have their girlfriend carry a Von Dutch handbag, talk about taking a trip to Sweden in conversation at the bar and MIGHT (as in very rare cases) drop a drop a Radio Birdman reference in some such conversation too but when they get done with their set a good portion of the crowd leaves thinking "Nice pose" and not much else. It's like those accountants, real estate agents, insurance salesmen and regional director who live on the north end of town who go out and buy Harley's to get in touch with their wild side. They got the bike, the boots and the pants...oh and that CD they bought at Best Buy called "Road Songs" so they can jam out to the Allman Brothers "Rambling Man" and "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf for the 100,000th time in their lives. When the pull up at a red light with decked out in their custom touring package set-up next to a bike the same model as their years but at least a decade older and stripped down as far as it can to still be considered street legal they shout over to the guy "Are you in the restoring phase?" They get a scowl and the bird flipped to them in return. Fancy bike guy thinks he got some type of One percenter approval...then it's off to the Folk-n-Blues festival up in that summer resort town. Maybe the stand by someone who proclaims themself as the local "father of the counter culture" and he bust out some poorly rolled and crumpled pin joint, light it up and offer then a toke. Then they'll take about toppling corporation but then get bummed cuz the nearest Starbuck's is 70 miles away. Consider Grafton the "barely street legal ride" in such a case as the above. They burn the gunk out the carb the old fashion (and most fun) way. That's right...Running that motor fast and hot-not by spraying some stuff in there and letting it sit overnight. Hear the straight pipes make a guttural howl as these guys run it full throttle akin to the greasy t-shirt and jean blasts of hate of the Mud City Manglers, the Supersuckers if they never made another record after "Smoke Of Hell" (well...maybe not the best example. It doesn't sound like anyone in Grafton ever played in a glam-metal band before they started deciding "punk rock" was cooler) or something like Sonic's Rendezvous Band wound tighter than thought possible. Yeah, there's guitar licks abounds but not a "check out my bad ass-ness"..."I will kick your ass" is more the case. Every once in awhile they slow it down to a dustbowl crawl of contempt for assholes (ie: 98% of the people in this world) smirking while they watch it all die in in the summer sun of a once thriving industrial town wasteland but then it's back to laying rubber down on streets overgrown with weeds and the smell of desolation and exhaust in the air. It can make most cough and wheeze but with Grafton it sounds like they've been breathing it so long that fresh oxygen would have a negative effect. smashin' transistors

Psychedellic Horseshit
Who Let The Dogs Out?

...If ya ask me, a small brush fire wouldn't be the worst thing to happen & I do my part whenever I can. But before another match get's lit, try & make sure you keep it out the way of this band Psychedelic Horseshit. Their debut 7" (on Columbus Discount Records) seems like it could be a hybrid of Versatile Newts, Treble Kicker era Pavement & Icky Boyfriends which is a way of sayin if you cut'em down, their rings mark practically 3 generations of Punk-gunk distemper. And the sleeve that houses it might be the best stapled package since TVP's '14th Floor' or the What Is Oil? 'Human Suffering' ep.Previous to this record they'd released (I think) 4 cdr's of same sort've chomp-nosh & I think they might have somethin a ranger'd wanna keep an eye on. So let'em grow I say! Flourish, feed the wind, bear your fruits. If they can sustain then it's only a matter of time before we sling a hammock through their branches & gourge till nod. Burpin never sounded so good. siltblog

El Jesus De Magico
Funeral Home Session

I know this record is gonna fly below everyone's radar. To me, it sounds like Jesus and Mary Chain, Chrome, and Pink Reason all meeting under the same leaky umbrella. Keyboards that sound like guitars, guitars that sound like keyboards, and delayed vocals that make these downer, anti-pop songs stick. Lazy, make a rainy day seem just that much more depressing, codeine soaked, art-damaged, post-everything, muck and mire and more than just an "art punk" record. I really love this. I've had it for a while now and have recommended it to the more adventurous folks that I think might have a passing interest. Check it out if you're into anthing besides cookie-cutter trash. maximumrocknroll

El Jesus De Magico
S/T

I couldn't help but to be taken aback when I finally heard this. Atmospheric yet propulsory, serrated by slippery synth-hooks and a newfound tightness (a step away from the larval, early-Royal Trux carelessness by which the band used to embody) and about as discomforting as the surreal experience of stumbling into a beerless after-after-party for the first time. It took a day or two to finally get a good handle on this, but I have no problem with a little work when the sounds are so riveting. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this EP is that, like Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments before them, and the band manages to counter such morally deflating atonality from left-field, with dynamic and youthful vigor. the z-gun

Night of Pleasure
Night of Pleasure EP

Ohio has been a fertile breeding ground for lo-fi, fast 'n loose punk / pop for a long time now -- Pere Ubu, Cheetah Chrome, Dead Boys, Pagans, Guided by Voices, Electric Eels, New Bomb Turks are just a few of the brilliant but often fidelity-challenged bands who have called the Buckeye State home at one time or another -- and Columbus Discount Records has apparently devoted themselves to documenting the latest wave of giddy defiance toward good taste and "good" sound. Which leads us to the debut single by Night of Pleasure, containing three short, fast, abrupt bursts of spontaneous energy and a willful indifference to the sounds of polished recordings. "Godard vs. Truffaut" is a gaudy, lo-fi blast of punked-out abandon and fuzzed-out, trebly guitar violence, while "Caesars Palace" is more of the same but with even more gloriously obnoxious guitar sound, not so much fuzzy as the sound of an amp starting to fry from being turned up entirely too loud and recorded way too hot. "Bitch Pitch," the flip side, swings more where the other two rocked, but still possesses plenty of uptempo energy and lo-fi abrasiveness. The singer sounds like he's one step away from collapsing in complete hysterics the entire time, and in true punk spirit, the proceedings sound considerably enhanced by the complete lack of fidelity (everything was recorded on a four-track machine at the band's rehearsal space) -- I can't imagine this sounding anywhere near as good (or intense) in a "proper" studio. Cool, cool rockin' bones and limited to 500 copies (100 on blue vinyl, the rest on the plain black stuff).     the one true dead angel

Necropolis
The Hackled Ruff and Shoulder Mane

Members of this Columbus, Ohio combo run the CDR label, which has released records by sub-buzzed bands like Times New Viking and El Jesus De Magico, but their own collective might be the best of the bunch. True, Bo Davis' warble sounds sort of like James Chance and maybe there's some herky-jerky going on. Otherwise, no neu wave here, as these potentates of panic-rock aim to stumble through astral alleys haunted by discarded '76 Pere Ubu reels and your last good memory of the Pixies. "Stalking Mark E. Smith Around NYC" is a swell distortoshuffle, and "To The Bar" and "Cloud 151" are fun chunks. The rest is mostly a grab-bag bunch-up of imploding synths, reverbed guitar amps getting kicked, rust belt poetry, choppy riffs, scruffy dub and a PBR case of nervous tension. And tension leads to wanting to get out of tight, creepy, noisy places quick-like, which The Hackled Ruff does just in time. cmj

The Proper Nouns
Birds & Butterflies

The Proper Nouns' debut is an impressive and concise reading of Brit-fueled fuzz pop harkening back to that golden era of music when the world actually gave a shit about the NME. As the most Proper of the Nouns, Matt Ogborn's distinctive voice is a wonderful lead instrument- articulating intricate melodies amidst rolling drums and a hazy wash of guitars and keyboards.

The Stapler
Metaphysical Haircut

Ohio bands always seem to proudly specialize in tuneful disorientation and these dudes are similarly engaged in hoisting that particular upside-down flag up the well-greased stripper pole that has absorbed spunk 'n' grit from V3 to ROBERT POLLARD to TIMES NEW VIKING over the years. Add the STAPLER to that proud tradition. Their songs are so full of noise, yelling, feedback, and melody that they occasionally tip the boat over in their eagerness to overload the fucker, but they still manage to meld their influences with their own take to create a floatable sonic shrine to the early-'90's Anyway/Datapanik sound. The real standout on this is "To The Trees," where they spend about five minutes taunting the ghosts of Ohio's indie rock past into jamming with them on a basement stage to their 30 converts. Any anthro-musicologist with an ounce of sap-sucking moxie would declare this to be American Religion's Folk Mutation Part Eleventy-Twelve. maximumrocknroll

Jordan O' Jordan
Not Style, Nor Season, Nor Hard-Handed Lesson

Not Style, Nor Season, Nor Hard Handed Lesson is the first album from Jordan O’ Jordan, the brainchild of Seattleite Jordan Smith. It features a surprisingly large cast of supporting musicians for such a simply arranged set of songs. Smith is billed as Columbus Discount’s first “bona fide folk singer” and fits the bill without any of the predictability that label implies. The album’s arrangements are deliberately spare and the lyrics are a modern, sometimes sardonic take on the traditional folk ballad. Jordan O’ Jordan will no doubt borrow fans from the likes of such prominent new folkies as Joanna Newsom, Jana Hunter and Devandra Banhart, but Smith’s music has less of a psychedelic flavor – more Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch, if you can believe it. Jordan O’ Jordan’s spare arrangements and plainly phrased but intricate lyrics give Not Style, Nor Season, Nor Hard Handed Lesson a charm all its own.

Smith’s lyrics alone make this an easy recommendation. The songs are jam packed with a mixture of everyday images and references to natural phenomena that work together to give each one depth and charisma. In fact, slowly deciphering each phrase and its relation to the images surrounding it is one of the greatest joys to be had from this album. A pastoral theme is apparent throughout, particularly in “Waverly, Ohio” and “A Town’s Reply to A Banjo,” the former celebrating American pastoralism, utilizing a quote from Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and a dash of “You are My Sunshine” for good measure, while “A Town’s Reply to A Banjo” analyzes the pastoral ideal by reinterpreting The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd in a modern context. There is also a strange sort of pastoralism in “Blame Fashion,” which celebrates a Middle American disgust with highfalutin tastes and trends.

Smith’s vocal delivery is calm and almost chit-chatty, as the dense lyrics leave little room for other embellishment. His voice is nasally with a slight warble, not unpleasant on its own, and the timbre of his vocals is complementary to that of the prominently featured banjo. The two sounds leave a great amount of deliciously empty aural space around them, specifically on “Balloon or Sinking Ship,” the simplest – and arguably the most beautiful – song on the album.

The addition of other instrumentation is a something of mixed blessing. The album closer “Old Foundry Fable” is filled out quite nicely with background vocals and percussion, but the piano on “Hard Handed Lesson” highlights the weaknesses of Smith’s voice and the autoharp on “Blame Fashion” is somewhat jarring. Overall, Jordan O’ Jordan has taken various strains of the folk idiom and mixed them together with a modern taste for irony to create a new, refreshing and challenging presentation of a tired genre. dusted

The Stapler
Very Clean

This is the reissue of The Stapler's impossible to find first EP, featuring such early fan favorites as "Gin + Phonics" and "Andy Ellis Gets His (You Know You Want Me)." The 6 song cd-r features some delicate hand-drawn and collaged artwork, which is quite lovely.

Times New Viking
Busy Making Love and War

dirgy, noisy indie-pop, but not in a bad way... urgent rhythms, buzzing, crackling guitar, and paranoid-sounding male and female vocals are punctuated by occasionally obtrusive keys. these recordings have appar- ently been "fucked with" by one Mike Rep of MIKE REP & THE QUOTAS and i'm not sure how much of their charm is due to his GBV-like aural tweakage. still, a welcome diversion. the song "war", although the slow- er of the two, was my favorite, sounding like a death-disco incarnation of later WIRE. i like. maximumrocknroll

The Blue Revision
Day Terrors

The Blue Revision's sole release, Day Terrors, is a stunner from start to finish-each song is saturated with the type of musical ideas that make groups like Sonic Youth and Joy Division (obvious starting points) so influential. The Blue Revision is sadly missed, but you can't help but be thankful that there was room in their short history for this intense exercise in modern prog punk.

Necropolis
Stalking Mark E. Smith Around NYC b/w I Love Cinnamon

Necropolis is just about the tightest (albeit drunkest) live band you'll see around these days, and the Mark E.-isms are in abundance on their debut single, "Stalking Mark E. Smith Around NYC." Reminiscent of the Country Teasers, but contrasted by an alluring late-night Siren vocal delivery.

Tree of Snakes
I am the lion

Wow! It has been a long time since I've heard a punk rock record that is not trying to project some kind of image or tap into an era long gone. This Tree of Snakes 7" pretty much sums up what I love in punk: It is basic, it is catchy, it is smart dumb, it makes me want to play it over and over. The A-side is a kinda-joke song which could have been one of those notions best left unexplored. It says a lot that these guys pulled off what is pretty much a really stupid idea. Good stuff. But it is the flip which makes me cream over this record. "Serious Knife Fight" is a classic, fuck-it garage punk every bit as good as the best of Captain 9's. If these guys don't make another record, that's fine by me. This pup will keep me warm for quite a while.  terminal-boredom

Terribly Empty Pockets
Sexy World b/w Trucks

Terribly Empty Pockets "Sexy World" moves like very early Flying Nun stuff - keyboard wobble, incredibly nice buried hooks and all. the wire

Terribly Empty Pockets
Get Wet

Get Wet" is a powerful and confident statement of purpose from these wolves in sheep's clothing. "Brother," for example, reads like Swell Maps-gone-Sonny & Cher; sweet and alluring, but with the type of complex harmonic arrangement that only punk funk-ups ever seem to bring out. In describing their sound you can name-drop the most motley crew of the new wave's best and most interesting (Eurythmics, Talking Heads, Bow Wow Wow, The Smiths, Nick Lowe, The Wedding Present, the Bats etc) and you will never be too far from the mark.