Thee Michelle Gun Elephant
(Bomp!) www.bomp.com

FACT - TMGE only sing their choruses in English (I'd never noticed that before so I thought that was kinda cool, especially as I'd often spent time trying to work out the words. These ones spring to mind like a little lamb. Card, blunt & pack). FACT - TMGE RAWK in a succint & sprightly fashion (with a few exceptions, which I'll get to). FACT - I think I'm a little bit silly. Listening to this a lot over the past few weeks made me dig out my copy of Gear Blues which I'd largely dismissed last time I played it earlier this year (too much country, maybe). I still haven't actually played it yet but I'll get to it too (or maybe not as I can't find the fucker). How can I have disregarded such a crunchy caterwaul hauled by the scruff of it's dirty neck from a seething cauldron of classic surf 60's pop garage hooks big enuff to hang King Kong on which they add some 70's punk with a dollop of 80's sleaze to meld a mewling mauling maelstrom with the force of a jump jet afterburner that filters from the past & kicks you into tomorrow? Eh? Put it on tonight & you WILL be feeling like a Human Cannonball. Pinhead Cranberry Dance's Stray Cats stomp can cause a poor boy to bop around the room full of pitfalls like Adam Ant (a good remedy to go & start the dreaded day job with)...the snap,crackle & (Iggy) pop fizz of Hi!China! (wow, get that harp - are you listening Stevie Bee) & Why Do You Want To Shake? are just plain exhilarating. Baby PLease Go Home, The Birdmen & Revolver Junkies are a hulking haulass of beautiful noise. Thru'out, but especially on Hi!China! & Black Tambourine the armour piercing rapid rattle of Futoshi Abe's guitar spits & strafes you with blistering shards of sewer soaked silverstring slime it's so damn hot, snarling like a pitbull & biting like a great white (but not the band who bit like dead goldfish). & the drummer Kazuyuki Kuhara is a genius in the vein of Jerry Nolan (pun not intended) on LAMF & the great drum bits on Baby Talk & I Love You, not Moony flash but when you sit & listen he's rather fine. A strange sort of downside is the oddly titled Boogie which plods along nicely & breezily enuff but maybe too breezily at over 8 minutes. Strange because it's not THAT tedious, kinda like The Jacobites 6minute plus Where The Rivers End. World's End too is disturbingly reminiscent of early 90's indie shoite masters Ned's Atomic Dustbin (or Ted's Bubonic Dirtbag as a schoolmate called 'em) & where the fuck is West Cabaret Drive on a Collection type affair???? Minus point there, but overall this kicks out those proverbials baby. - Stu Gibson