An unslicked back side project here from two of Boston's Kings of Nuthin' the Turpentine Brothers are an aptly named trio (alright one's a sister, but not apt in that sense) spilling caustically crooned cartilage crushing blues sewage catastrophes down your drains, in your drinks, in your fucking tap water, soaking your cigarettes with the smoke of a thousand red-eyed nights and swathing your soul in the swampy residue of the rat infested alleys and gutters littering the sideways and byways of wherever the hell it was you said you came from. Scorchin' your skin clean off with the acrid plumes of 'People Are Talkin' - a putdown of shallow scenesters everywhere, I second that, with the brilliantly acerbic Costello-isms of 'You say one thing but we both know that you mean another / It's too bad that your two faces can't meet each other' about those types that spend their times 'talking so much shit to make up for knowing nothing' - and 'Somethin's Not Right', the records initial anger and strident assault, at first listen something like Thee Hypnotics fighting The Wedding Present for the  methedrine, cools slightly in the first half but only concentrates it's energy elsewhere and shape-shifts into an alleycat prowling, malevolent staring glacial eyed sea storm of crashing crescendos, vocalist/guitarist Justin shrouded in voodoo velvet reverb in the city smoke afloat on waves, ripples, swirls and whirlpools of Hammer Horror fairground organ grinds, in turn propelled by Jerry Nolan on a Harley drumming. Curtis Mayfield's 'Fool For You' is a tumultuous pyroclastic ash flow waltz that walks hand in hand through the devastation and debris with 'I Wanna Be Close', calmly cranked out in an evil Jim Morrison / Nick Cave croon, crooked grin, leering eyes and jaunty cigarette dangling, angled just so. The end of church sermon 'One Man' also sounds like a repentant Nick Cave lighting candles, a slow bluesy crawl through closets and closed doors, cold, haunting and armed to the teeth with ice pick guitars. It's a sound definitely of the city, so it slices images and familiar fast-forward snippets of earlier heroes through your skull, namely Iggy and Lou Reed, especially in the cracked, reptilian rasp and lazy drawl, though it's better by far than those two, who rest on myth alone, and maybe the less out of control (therefore far less good) Blues Explosion. The only remotely similar thing to the two guys main line of work is the rolling train drums on 'Wastin' Time' too so isn't something that can really be compared for better or worse. Me, though, I guess my money will always be on the Kings but this is more, much more than worth investigating even if it's ultimately just for the caustic carousing half of it. That's half a record that sucks the air out of your lungs and replaces it with whatever the hell kinda air you need to live through a nuclear or volcanic winter, and with the other half making a plentiful whole of piledriving roadworks construction site garage blues squawl.
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-Stu Gibson