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I left this one on repeat-play when I ran off to the grocery store, and when I got back my entire apartment was flooded in reverb. Gooey, sticky reverb all over the carpet, reverb clogging up the sinks...my cat spent hours cleaning reverb from his fur. Just when I thought I'd gotten all the reverb cleaned up, I opened a closet door - and a whole clutter of slapback echo fell all over my head. But hey - the Rock*a*Teens may be a bit overfond of vintage production tricks, but they've got great vintage songs to go with. The name of the band's a bit misleading - the title's a better indicator of most tracks here, which favor Orbisonesque 6/8 rhythms. "Black Ice" makes almost Cramps-like use of a very tight, insectoid slapback echo, while the organ in "Let Them Talk" evokes an abandoned county fairground on a cloudy, full-moon night. I was hoping to hear more vocals from Kelly Hogan (ex- of the tragic Jody Grind), but main vocalist Chris Lopez is a fine singer: not as dramatic a belter, but not exactly restrained or refined either. His brawny anguish on "Rockabilly Ghetto" nearly out-Mekons the Mekons. Cry is far better than a period piece - if you were expecting slicked-hair sitcom leather-jacket pseudobilly, you'll be disappointed. Instead, the Rock*a*Teens use forms that happen to have been originated thirty, forty years ago - the classic rock ballad, sparse instrumentation counterbalanced by spacious production, songs whose lyrics include the word "lonesome" - and show that those styles haven't died, they'd just gone out of fashion. The best part is, the band doesn't give a rat's ass about making its style fashionable again. It just tunes up the songs and polishes their chrome until they purr, roar, and shine. |
