Black Lips

There's not a lot of new to be found in Black Lips' fuzzy, skuzzy, hard-charging garage rock. Take a spin through last year's Good Bad Not Evil or any of the band's older releases and you'll find the usual assortment of influences: Velvet Underground, maybe a touch of 13th Floor Elevators, splashes of punk and lots and lots of those one-hit wonders that populate Nuggets compilations. But just because the group is working a sound as old as some of our parents doesn't mean it isn't any fun. The Lips' raucous, swaggering rock tunes are tailor-made for fist-pumping, ear-splittingly loud live performances, and the band has a reputation for delivering exactly that. This kind of trashy, good-time rock may not hold any surprises, but fill yourself with enough cheap beer and you'll be too busy rocking out and shouting "Woo-hoo!" at the top of your lungs to notice.