
The Hot Babe Lovers – Hair in Disarray
I’m genuinely shocked at how much of my mornings have been spent searching for tunes to act as a caffeine substitute and drag my tired hide out of bed. The Ramones usually do the trick. I got Iggy if I’m feeling confident. Some 60s garage rock works wonders if I’ve been out boozing and still feel a little psychedelically inclined.
“Hair in Disarray” by Finnish band, The Hot Babe Lovers, scratches a similar itch. It’s a garage rock tune disguised in modern attire. While the guitars and vocals are aggro-convincing, the real selling point is the hip-swinging groove. Most shockingly of all, the danceable groove comes courtesy of a group originating from one of the least rhythm savvy lands in all of the world. After all, this is the country that let loose the beat-deaf monstrosities that are Nightwish and the Rasmus on an unsuspecting world.
The Hot Babe Lovers are nothing like that I’m happy to report. They like a good beat, the quick turn of phrases, and hitting on to a good riff or two. Oh, wait… The lead singer was actually born in Brazil? Well, there you go then.
Casual Drag – Bleach Head
The Doors, The Beach Boys, Black Sabbath. The list of band names that perfectly described the sound they are supposed to represent is a short one. Well, perhaps, no other name gives a better description of what’s inside the tin than Casual Drag.
The group is a garage rock-retro machine on Bleach Head melding sounds that clearly were smuggled in from a different decade. And, while the single’s opening seconds could easily soundtrack a 60s teenager beach movie, the antisocial vocals make it seem like Casual Drag has managed to erase any trace of joy belonging to that fabled time. Damn hippies, indeed!
I don’t know if I trust the anger displayed by death metal screamers, but I certainly wouldn’t want to cheer up from the singer of Casual Drag. His shouts hit like a fist in the back of the head, and the rest of the group are just as up to no good. Their mixture of scuzzy surf music and punk sounds like delinquents made it in between shoplifting raids on an unsuspecting sleepy town.
We don’t like to mince words here at Alt77. Casual Drag sounds great!