Lords of Fuzz

"Crooked Finger" begins this album with a heavy tom strike ahead of a flood of guitar rock that sounds like it could easily have been the source of the band's name. But rather than fill the space with noise, these guys let the songs breathe with a swinging cadence. It's...

By Tom Murphy

October 11, 2012

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"Crooked Finger" begins this album with a heavy tom strike ahead of a flood of guitar rock that sounds like it could easily have been the source of the band's name. But rather than fill the space with noise, these guys let the songs breathe with a swinging cadence. It's tempting to call what's happening here a "groove," and maybe that's what it is, but there's a sense of swinging motion that brings a pendulum to mind. There's also a lot of fluid movement in the interplay among the musicians. "Middle Finger" and "Enfrentamiento" recall Soundgarden's early mixture of metal, punk and psychedelia, while "15 Years" borders on ballad territory, although the weighty subject matter of the lyrics immediately dispels such notions. (Stop by backbeatblog.com for a full Q&A with the band in advance of this week's CD-release show.)

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Tom Murphy is a writer, visual artist and musician from Aurora, Colorado. He was a prolific music writer for Westword and a documenter of the Denver music scene.

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Twitter: @simianthinker