Modey Lemon- Thunder and Lightning (Birdman)
Ok, so
their name is too goddamn fussy. It sounds like some Frenchman’s mangling of an
old blues singer, or something. Beyond that, there are bleary-eyed savages
running wild through a dense feedback jungle here, so let’s skip the surface
jive and dive right in. Modey Lemon are another entry in the suddenly
crowded sub-sub-genre of blues-punk duos. I dunno if they were the first or the
last to get on this highly unlikely gravy train (I suspect somewhere in the
middle), but they are most likely the first two-man garage racketeers from
Pittsburgh, which is surely the most under-rated rock and roll town in the
country. For the record, Paul Quattrone is on the traps, and one Phil
Boyd is lead everything else. Together they chug and rattle and blurt with
such reptile intuition that it makes you think they’ve gotta be sharing
something- half a brain, a couple of balls, maybe- to flow so perfectly with
one another. Sure, the Lemon wallows in the same dirty-fuzz gospel as
like-minded sinners like the Lee County Killers and the Black Keys,
but the difference here is weight and intensity. As bare boned as this outfit
is, they pack a whole ear bleeding wall of rock action in the claustrophobic
confines of “Thunder and Lightning”. How the fuck do two guys manage to
kick out the goddamn jams with such ferocity without 5 Motor City revolutionary
nutcases covering their backs? Listen, that’s just the way they handle business
in Steel City, Jack. Any band that’s gonna cop the title of their record from a
Thin Lizzy album- the album that featured the monstrous “Cold Sweat”,
even- had better come to the party armed to the teeth. And believe me, Modey
Lemon is packing plenty of heat here. They just gotta change their name, or
nobody’s gonna buy any t-shirts.