Whitelocust – Outta My Shape
Similar artists: Soundgarden, Mad Season, Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam
Genre: 90s Rock, Alternative Rock
In rock music, some things are best said while keeping a clenched fist, while others are best murmured in the right company. Whitelocust do a bit of both with a sound that echoes equally the Seattle grunge groups of the 90s and psychedelic explorers a la Jim Morrison’s The Doors.
Modern rock music isn’t merely suffering because radio programmers have opted to stop playing it. A lot of its issues stem from the fact that most modern rock bands lack subtlety. Sure, they’re loud, but what do they have to be loud about? What questions are they asking about themselves or of the world?
Whitelocust’s “Outta My Shape” sounds like grungey self-meditation, a soundtrack to waking home, slowly, through the rain. The band manages to balance the rage of alternative rock and the desire to find something better, more important, and to answer important questions. Part sobering reality, part autumn dream. Whitelocust’s understand how there’s no reason to rock out unless there’s a mysterious force driving everything.
WolfWolf – The Falcon
Similar artists: Reverend Beat-Man, The Monsters, Jack White, Eagles Of Death Metal, Desert Sessions
Genre: Punk, Stoner Rock, Garage Rock
Ideally, a rock record’s sleeve should look like it has been produced by a group of dangerous anarchists or religious fundamentalists who are financing their activity by selling guitar-based music to impressionable youths. WolfWolf subscribes to this ideal with music presented like the fever dream of a Middle-Aged Sorcerer who has travelled through time and joined a biker gang.
There will always be a place for music that seems to be made for people who actively reject conventions of every kind. Furthermore, in order to attract to your cause the right kind of audience, some subtlety is needed. This is a trait that most modern rock groups have never acquired and rarely even considered.
WolfWolf’s “The Falcon” sounds like a dirty garage-rock jam played in front of a witch council that has assembled in the desert. It is made to sound nasty but mysterious, sexy but troubling. Musically, it is built from the bones of stoner rock, and even the psychobilly remains of bands like the Cramps. It’s music for villains and their henchmen.
