Reviews

Spinout Nuggets

Nervous Twitch The Day Job Gets in the Way LP

NERVOUS TWITCH has been churning out quality punk/wave, mod revival rock’n’roll, ’70s singable punk records for around thirteen years, and with each release, they continue to distill their sound and become more catchy. The Day Job Gets in the Way, their newest LP, rockets down that road of playful, hummable, sardonic wit and catchy songwriting. Erin Hyde’s vocals capture the mood perfectly, and she seamlessly glides from carefree to pissed-off to bored, which in its totality creates a full record of engrossing songs. Any of these NERVOUS TWITCH songs could have as easily been found on one of those 20 of Another Kind or English Waves early punk compilations, all while remaining fresh and interesting.

The CTMF For Your Love EP

I love just about anything that Billy Childish touches. No lie. I can see how some people may go the opposite way. I just like that sound. If you’re waiting for me to say that this is some sort of an exception, it isn’t. Like most of his stuff, this one’s got a very ’60s garage rock sound to it, starting with the choice of a song to cover. I don’t find the YARDBIRDS cover particularly innovative, but the band certainly is well-suited to cover the song (“For Your Love”). The other two cuts are both impressive retro-rockers. Nicely produced, achieving a nice balance of sounding garage-y, while also sounding produced but not over-produced. Long live garage rock’n’roll.

Wild Billy Childish & The Chatham Singers Step Out! LP

New from British garage auteur BILLY CHILDISH, Step Out! is his fifth release with Chicago Blues outlet the CHATHAM SINGERS, comprised of his wife Julie and longtime collaborators Wolf and Jim. The prolific Mr. CHILDISH is right at home singing hard-nosed, harmonica-strewn stompers like the tough opener of the title track, and from here a smooth succession of numbers both melancholy and jolly unfolds. A punk veteran since the old days, BILLY has aged gracefully into an authentic bluesman while leaving distinct traces of his groovy garage past intact, and it makes for an enticing and accomplished LP. It’s worth picking up for his rough-hewn rendition of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” alone, the best version of the smoky standard since the MEAT PUPPETS. Dig that twang.