There's a guitar sound that wheedles through this record, skewering it like half cooked meat, checking to see that the juices have run clear. It's Marc Bolan's, his proto electric sound. He's just on the cusp of his fame, while he's still playing bongos and babbling about great horses and beards of stars he has remembered to plug it in. I've always liked that guitar sound: loose and boogieish but sharp and noisy. It cuts right through. And it cuts right through on "Dinosaurs", Joga's epic 32 track "What I did on my holidays" album. And I don't like it here - here it gives me a right bastard tight behind the eyes stinker of a headache.
I had high hopes for this record. Opener "Tabula Rasa" made me stop in my tracks. It sounded different! I was expecting the usual dull drizzle of indie guitars and this SHONE out of the stereo. Here's what it sounds like: The Staple Singers on Sesame Street jamming with Sly Stone on a cover "let's stick together". Sounds good doesn't it? There's some jazzy violin on it too! Its a glorious, sugary, sticky mess. "Rat Race" kicks in with early Beach Boys harmonies and rockin' Lyndsay Buckingham guitar. It's not as good, but it's okay - turns into the B52s at the end, which is always nice. By the time you're into "All American Alien" it's starting to grate a little. It starts as a sixties folk pastoral but pretty soon the stupid thick-voiced stoner voice comes in on the chorus and Marc's guitar starts noodling away. It's like Smiley Smile without the charm.
"Union Village" is a struggle: that guitar chugging away again like a buzz saw, chorus of wailing hippies like the pissed off spectres of Altamont. And then I realise that I'm only seven songs into a 32 song set. I grit my teeth, I gird my loins; I persevere. "Hump Day" starts in the usual way with the witless Ween wailing and then suddenly from nowhere blistering sexy funk appears with brilliant space invader guitars! And that's what's wrong here. Some of these songs could be good, REALLY good. If only they werent attired in gaudy hippy motley, if only the keening could stop for five minutes; if that guitar would piss off.
Somewhere in this stoner morass there's a pretty good album. Someone needs to cut it's hair. Bring back national service.
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