Impediments
(Happy Parts)
Four teenagers, crazed by guitars and hormones, slashing out two-chord, one-take bashers at Greg Ashley's Oakland Creamery, full of spit and sweat and balls-out, foul-mouthed aggression... By now, you're either suppressing a yawn or on your way to the MySpace. There's nothing specially new here, nothing not already attempted by the Dolls/Stooges/MC5 axis of good times, nothing not raked over in a million ways by garage dwellers of every decade. And yet, the Impediments - Nick Allen, Ray Seraphin, Mike Liebman and Rene Macleay -- do what they so with particular intensity and heat ... not to mention obscenity. (Yes, they are shouting "Don't you vomit on my cock" in the chorus to "Vom," what are you going to do about it? )
From the Billy Preston banging pianos and handclaps that pace "LeeAnn" (a lust anthem to Ms. Rimes) to the Who-slinging power chords of "Vagina Envy," the album delivers on pretty much every cut. "2012" is even better than the Box Elders' end-of-the-Mayan-world song, somehow making a party anthem out of the phrase "I! I! I! want to die." If you like "What I Like About You"-ish shouters where everyone in the band yells "hey" together (and you do, don't you?), "Down" is a particularly vigorous example, something to get the fist pumping early.
Caution: if you start your evening with an album like this, you're likely to end it puking in a dirty stall somewhere before it's over, possibly naked, certainly on your own. It's a drunken riot going on, not a hook-up soundtrack, and in fact there's not much romance here. The one sensitive, lyrics-driven song ("You Want a Square") is about the kind of guy girls leave rockers for, the dependable sort who likes Hall & Oates and has a garden gnome in his yard. Maybe girls do want a square to pay the bills and get the oil changed, but for Saturday night, I'll take the Impediments any time.
Standout Tracks: "Down", "2012", "You Want a Square" JENNIFER KELLY
