At the end of the year when all the magazines and blogs come out with their "best of" lists, you can be sure the tops of said lists will be full of records that are either considered ground breaking or new or what the fuck ever. But I'm just too old to care about such nonsense.
I like rock music. Well I like all kindsa music, but I REALLY like rock and roll. Be it punk, garage, lo fi, shoegaze, metal, or japanese noise prog...I enjoy the sound that is rock and fucking roll...and so at the end of the day all I'm really looking for in a new album is for it be something that rocks to me. And without a doubt the record that has rocked me most this year (so far) is Harlem's Hippies. Combing elements of sloppy garage punk like the Black Lips with catching song writing of your typical indie pop band, Harlem is sorta a mishmash of all the things we love about electric white boy blues. a solid little rhythm section that always feels near the edge of falling apart, tuneful yet tuneless vocals that remind you ANYONE can fucking sing in a band, and the fact that all you need to have a good song is a chorus everyone can remember.
When I listen to this record it's hard not to imagine that you're part of a drunken house party with a bunch of guys plowing through a set of oldies covers played slightly out of key and with the lyrics slurred and half remembered. It's the kinda house party you'll remember for the rest of your life if you hadn't been too fucking drunk and blacked it out. Still you get little flashes now and again and you remember, "GOD DAMN! That was fucking rad."
Does that even explain to you what kind of album Hippies is? Do I even care? Just listen.
It ain't rocket science, it's rock and roll. And Harlem knows this better than most.
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