C.B. Carlyle & the Desert Angels – Sweet Violence
Genre: Southern Rock / Red Dirt, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: C.W. Stoneking, Timber Timbre, Howlin Wolf, Nick Cave, The Doors, Little Walter, T-Bone Walker
Fairytales and horror stories are both cut from the same fabric. They’re both stories that reveal a lot about the public consciousness, about what people really desire or fear. They’re a walk through the public’s psyche.
Horror stories, in particular, are required. Violence in itself is a terrible thing. But, it exists and it is bound to make its mark on the world sooner or later. The horror stories help people understand who they should fear and when they should run.
Guitar music has a proud history of creating horror stories. C.B. Carlyle & the Desert Angels are making themselves part of the tradition of gruesome tales on Sweet Violence. Their mix of dirty blues and murder ballads captures something essential about modern music. At the heart of it, it either contains a fairytale or a bloody spook’s tale. C.B. Carlyle proposes the latter and does it with great vocal control and a proficient reconstruction of the past.
The Out-Sect – Bad Walkin’
Genre: Garage Rock
Similar artists: The Premonitions, The Seeds, Mystery Lights, The Mummies, The Makers, The Drags, The Sonics
At its heart, garage rock is regular 60s-tributary music with sped up and poured in acid. And, oh, how we love it. In fact, although rock has concocted so many variations, there’s nothing that provides quite the same punch.
Coincidentally garage-rock is, usually, the sound favored by most bands upon first stepping into their rehearsal spaces. It fits into the fantasy of many young rockers. It’s Elvis wearing a leather jacket and shouting at his audience. It’s music by potential rock stars who aren’t too concerned about looking or sounding nice.
The Out-Sect’s Bad Walkin‘ picks up on garage-rock’s bad traits and emphasizes them. The production makes the song feel as if it was produced with recording equipment hidden under floorboards. The singing looks to outdo Iggy Pop at his most aggressive towards his own fans. The Out-Sect may appeal to a small niche audience, but it’s the niche that has picked up on rock’s very defining traits.