If I were to
pick one label as my favorite this year it would definitely
be Dirtnap Records. So far they’ve released three of
my favorite albums in 2011 (from Something Fierce, Marked
Men, and High Tension Wires) and a killer SXSW sampler.
Sure, it can be said that I’m a sucker for Texas garage
rock, but Dirtnap picks only the very best for their roster,
and for that they deserve a little SOTO love.
This brings me to my latest Dirtnap obsession, Welcome
New Machine by High Tension Wires. Members of the band
hail from the Marked Men, Mind Spiders, The Bad Sports, and
the Riverboat Gamblers, and together they mix classic punk
and garage rock to create propulsive barnburners that rarely
last more than 120 seconds. In fact, all 12 songs on
the LP are compacted into just 26 minutes.
Much like the self-titled release from Mind Spiders earlier
this year, Welcome New Machine is bursting with great
hooks. I honestly could have chosen any of the songs
as my favorites, but the two I went with best display the
range of the record. Backbone is in line with the
type of catchy pop-punk you’d expect from the Marked Men,
while Handicapped Hearts sounds like a lost U2 song
from the War album. As for some other highlights,
Get Weird and The Secret Of The Hydrogen Bomb are
caustic post-punk jams with hints of new wave. Don't
think of this as your typical garage rock record. It’s
actually a fairly polished effort that still manages to be
unruly, aggressive and fun.
:High
Tension Wires - Backbone:
:High
Tension Wires - Handicapped Hearts:
- Dan Corbin -
Unless
otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any
related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by
John Laird under a
Creative Commons License.
