Negative Approach - Tied Down - Melody Maker - March 16 1991

 

plus bonus Laughing Hyenas bashing from this Spin review 1995 paired with Royal Trux

ROYAL TRUX 

Thank You (Virgin)       

LAUGHING HYENAS 

Hard Times (Touch & Go)  

     Where could US underground rock 'go', after Sonic 

Youth's "Daydream Nation" reached the outer-limits of 

'reinvention of the guitar'? Why, back to 'the source', of 

course--black R&B (and the late '60s/early 70s white 

appropriations thereof), in a quest to relearn the lost 

fundamentals of 'groove' and 'feel'. 

Hence the backwards journey taken by a new breed of blues fundamentalists like 

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Come and Mule (formed, 

coincidentally, by two refugees from Laughing Hyenas). I can 

only marvel at the timelag syndrome that bedevils Amerindie's 

relationship with black music: unlike British bands, US 

rockers only seem comfortable venerating African-American pop 

when it's dead and buried, e.g. Big Chief vis-a-vis early 

Funkadelic. Doubtless, we'll have to wait twenty years before 

the US underground wakes up to the booty-coercing futurism of 

SWV, Craig Mack and Underground Resistance. 

Just to make sure we know exactly where they're coming 

from, Laughing Hyenas namecheck Howling Wolf and John Lee 

Hooker in interviews, and insert the word 'blues' into not 

one but TWO songs on their new LP--'Hard Time Blues', with 

its risible "I bin down since I could crawl" line, and the 

maudlin, country-inflected "Home of the Blues". The Hyenas 

used to be a noise-core outfit, whose sole distinguishing 

feature was the flamethrower vocals of John Brannon (who used 

to sear ears in the ultra-taut hardcore unit Negative 

Approach). 

Despite their blues affectations, the Hyenas 

purvey what used to be called 'high-octane rock'n'roll', 

firmly rooted in the late '60s sound of their native Detroit; 

Brennon now sounds like Iggy if he'd been fixated on Jagger 

rather than Jim Morrison. 

While the band can't swing for toffee, they do rumble 

effectively. But Brannon's slurred roar ('take me fo' a 

ride', 'reach out yo' han'', ad nauseam) has less to do with 

Robert Johnson than with The Stooges of "I'm Sick Of You" and 

"Not Right".  If heavily-amplified, fuzzed-to-fuck self-pity 

is your particular cup of poison, drink deep. Me, I'll take 

my blooze bastardisation from those who take Ozzy rather than 

Muddy as blues-print, i.e. Alice In Chains (who could really 

make something of Hyena titles like 'Slump' and 'Each Dawn I 

Die')....