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').
Like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (that other offshoot of
garage-skronk pioneers Pussy Galore), Royal Trux have at
least earned the right to go atavistic. Having proved they
can push the envelope (with the drug-damaged lo-fi chaos
theorems of "Twin Infinitives" and the "Exile on Main Street"
filtered through "Daydream Nation" of "Cats and Dogs"), it's
only fair that Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema should be
allowed to contract their raunch'n'roll to fit the contours of
Black Crowes-style retro. On their major label debut Thank
You, Trux retain the supple boogie glide of "Thorn In My
Pride", the baleful thrust of "Remedy", but purge the hokey
Humble Pie over-emoting that makes Crowes stick in craw.
Thank You is Sticky-Fingered to the max, its sinewy riffs,
grinding bass and seething percussion harking back to 'Can't
You Hear Me Knockin'?".
What sets Trux leagues above and
beyond Laughing Hyenas is that they funk, in that fierce
white-boy fashion that early '70s rock had down pat, but
which punk extinguished when it replaced syncopation with
thud-thud-thud-thud.
Song-wise, Royal Trux don't really write tunes so much
as riffs; Hagerty & Herrema's elegantly wasted unison drawl
functions as a vocal equivalent to rhythm guitar, just
another twist'n'tug factor in the all-important groove.
Herrema's haggard croon (you can practically hear the nodes
forming on her distressed larynx) is at its vicious best on
"You're Gonna Lose"--offset by Hagerty's gloating backing
chorus, she expectorates the venomous put-downs, and proves
herself one of the best 'bad' singers since Alice Cooper
circa 'Elected'.
Overall, though, what with lyrics that are
as incomprehensibly Philip K. Dick-like as ever, Thank You
isn't about songs and singing, but grooves and guitar. The
album was produced by David Briggs (who worked on many of
Neil Young's '70s albums), and appropriately Hagerty's short
solo on "Map Of The City" has a jalapeno-sting redolent of
'Southern Man'. Generally, Hagerty avoids the gaseous,
mirage-like soloing that made 'Cats and Dogs' such a
gloriously narcotic haze, and concentrates on a rhythm/lead
hybrid that's tres tres Keef.
Best comes last with the aformentioned 'You're Gonna
Lose' and the snakehipped, sultry 'Shadow of the Wasp'. The
highest praise you can offer Thank You is that it's like
time travel. While this ultimately underlines the inadequacy
of the Amerindie state-of-art (basically antiquarianism, or
at best, lo-fi's retro-eclecticism), it also indicates that
Royal Trux have made a muthafunkin' fine record.
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