OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'TURN TO CRIME'
'Can't Love'   

-  Label: 'Mugg & Bopp/ Old Flame'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '7th July 2014'

Our Rating:
This is pretty much the best album I have heard this year and it’s all down to Derek Stanton, former member of Ecstatic Peace band Awesome Color.

Opening track ‘I’ is really just a one minute intro for title track ‘Can’t Love’ which is one of the most life affirming tracks I have heard in ages. “I don’t want nothing/I don’t need loving...I don’t want good times/I don’t like sunshine...I can’t love”. Why is this life affirming? Because it just sounds so fucking delirious that’s why. The drums are heavy but distant, light but insistent. The singer sounds as if he is giving us his truth and more to the point sounds like he doesn’t give two hoots either way.

It works as a nice prelude to ‘Sunday’s Cool’ which has to be the coolest song to play on a Sunday ever. Imagine Brian Wilson never made it back from that last trip and ended up as a hobo playing his pop symphonies on the street corner with a tinny tiny amplifier for company and you’re getting somewhere close.

On ‘Pine Box’ Derek takes us quietly and solemnly back to church and then kicks the lid off and leads the procession back out the place with some ‘Forgiveness’. The last two tracks ‘Nightmares’ and ‘I Can’t Not Love’ are significantly longer than what has gone before and also far more esoteric. ‘Nightmares’ sounds like three guys jamming in a garage, oblivious to each other, playing far too loud and mumbling into the microphone. Perhaps more akin to what you might find on Ecstatic Peace? ‘I Can’t Not Love is the ten minute epic that worms, burns and drones its way into your heart.

This album reminds me of NZ band King Loser and strangely has me shedding a tear for all those Bob Dylan aficionados who secretly wonder what he would actually sound like if...you know...he let his hair down once in a while. If you like scuzz, scuff, fuzz or muff you should somehow try and listen to this album.  



Old Flame Records online
  author: Leo Newbiggin

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



TURN TO CRIME - Can't Love