DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY

Sunday, October 20, 2024

The Battlebeats

Meet Your Maker

(Sweet Time Records)

Maximium Rock'n'Roll wrote that Andresa Nugraha sired this Indonesian Garage-Punk project in 2019. Today, the man played all instruments on Meet Your Maker. (He apparently retains touring players - they recently aimed flamethrowers at Tokyo.) Such is the breakneck frenzy and string ravages that comparisons have been drawn to Guitar Wolf and Teengenerate. All but leaps from packaging.

Recommended: "R'N'R All Night Long," "Don't Talk To Me," "Dressed To Kill," "Meet Your Maker," "The Anaxiphiliac," "Wicked City," "You Wanna Be Me," "Born To Lose," "You Ain't Better Than Me"

Video: live in Tokyo, 2024 (37:44)

Drive-In Radio

The Voyageur

(Tenvolt)

There's nothing ostentatious to be found here, which is precisely the reason it warrants acquisition. Tremendous reward can be got from simple Country. One acoustic, one standup, and two common drawls with uncommon tunefulness coalesce in hand-tooled cordiality.

Video

Saturday, October 19, 2024

Shane Vain and the Village Vandals

Rubber City Rumblebilly

(Rumble Road Records)

To quote Sir Cliff: "Ballads and Calypso have got nothin' on / real Country music that just drives along!" Carousing in these grooves is Rock'n'Roll all liquored-up and with eyes peeled for kicks. Paraded are devastations from the Akron combo's extant catalog, as well as just-out-of-wrapper "Can't Beat the House." Milquetoasts would scamper from this howl.

Recommended: "Hot Rod Big Rig," "Till That Moon Goes Down," "The Ballad of Large Marge," "It's Not Rocket Science," "How Many Times," "Three-Ton Jack," "Can't Beat the House"

Video: "Hot Rod Big Rig"

Los Rockin' Jacks

"Pensaba en ti" single

(Alguacil Records)

Dancehall lights lower as a tender ballad intones. Romeos and Juliets search one another's eyes, and drift into embrace. Couples enflamed revolve glacially. The song's majestic changes are familiar and adored; classic Rock'n'Roll from which generations of lovers have taken inspiration. The dance will soon end. But the night has only begun.

Video

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Arbo

"Cry Love (Live From the Living Room)" single

(Histrophonics)

The song before us is more than only lissome comfort (though it cetainly is that). Louisiana-bayou voicing, unhurried pace, and mandolin pluckings total Americana genuineness that only men can produce; no studio technology could even near that prize.

Video

Back In the Day, 2012

The Chop Tops

Evil Six: Revisted

(Swillbilly Music)

Crisp tidings hold that the bomb-hurling Chop Tops have prepared a reunion platter titled Fabrikate for 2025 issuance. (The group's site advises that "limited-edition pre-order" bundles have already been depleted.) Their last release, Evil Six, initially saw store racks in 2001; this 2012 version reminded of the group's skull-swinging vigor. Ferocity leapt with fists up in opening instrumental "Sun Down." That pugnacious stance was maintained even as the coda subsided, eleven tracks later. Interludes arrived via intermittent down-shifted cruises. Relish of the Chop Tops' antecedent waxings is enriched by knowledge that the flames yet rage.

Recommended: "Sun Down," "Let's Ride," "Hey Baby," "I'm a Rocker," "Doin' My Best," "Evil Six," "Drinkin' My Life Away,"
"Johnny Law," "Too Many Cats," "13 Months"

Video: "I'm a Rocker" "13 Months"

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Zombina and the Skeletones

The Call of Zombina

(9x9 Records)

Being a lifelong devotee of horror cinema (both classic and drive-in detritus sorts), the present writer is reminded of director/co-producer Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula. (The titular menace was, of course, interpreted by ominous icon Bela Lugosi.) Throughout The Call of Zombina, cobwebbed circumstances in which eerie misdoings seem imminent abound. The magnetism that lurks is as much the product of somber tones as august movements. Dark passages hurtling and implicitly sinister are brewed judiciously; the effect is deliciously fearsome imbalance.

Recommended: "Blood Rite For the Resurrection of a Sleeping Countess," "Cemetery World," "The Black House," "Vampire's Kiss," "Don't Kick My Coffin," "I'm Horrified!," "Valley of the Shadow," "Dead Birds," "Ghost Train II: Oblivion," "No Wonder I'm Always Anxious"

Videos: "Blood Rite For the Resurrection of a Sleeping Countess" "Ghost Train II: Oblivion"

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