Somewhere in Toronto a garage is empty, devoid of suburban punks, copies of Nuggets strewn heedlessly on the concrete floor. They've been busy laying down these seven tracks of shaking, straightforward rock & roll. There are backing vocals, tremulous guitar sounds and some off-hand non-verbal lyrics. It's the stuff of southern California valleys and rusty small towns in Ohio.
"Clap" hits the surf with all boards and fingers blazing. I'm quite happy to have those buttons pushed. Y Niwl have done a lot of the groundwork in recent months. "I see you up on the stage/But I know you're still deranged...Have a good, chilled-out time tonight," they observe drolly. The singer gives the impression of a lad about the scene. He adds that "your legs are like stems of flowers/Wanna lie with you for hours and hours" on "ESP": smooth work, bucko!
The pistons are moving freely by the time we reach "Tosta Mista", though it's difficult to hear where the six musicians fit in. Doesn't sound like more than a four-piece; someone's slacking off. It circles around and around the drain for what feels like a couple of minutes, echoing and turning in on itself in a real neat way.
"Den of Love" is all slow and smoochy and that so as to demonstrate that Hooded Fang are serious about coming from the Dwight Eisenhower era. They should get together with Richard Hawley. Perhaps take him back to Canada with them. It still disturbs me, a hankering after an era that they never even experienced. I never liked the Fonz or Showaddywaddy myself.
Lively and playful and lightly dabbed with Portuguese - exactly how I like my garage rock.
Rating: Echo Chamber out of Surf Shack
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