review: Adrian and the Sickness -- B.F.D

Adrian and the Sickness
B.F.D.
Fantom Records, 2009

Review by Brian Tucker

Everyone's in Austin this week and the town is seemingly never short on musical diversity. Adrian and the Sickness, an Austin stalwart since 2004, have a new album that hugs very hard. It’s a mixed bag of tricks. More so, the female trio is a powerhouse rock and roll band that drops guitar riffs and drum beats like a cute kid driving a Sherman tank around town and firing wildly. Sometimes blistering, sometimes heavy handed, and consistent on saccharine laced vocals, the band deliver loads of explosive energy on their fourth album B.F.D.

Fiery and melodic as late eighties metal (think L.A. Guns, Fastway) and funky as seventies-era AC/DC mixed with the jump-up-and-dance feel of The Go Go’s the band shoots from the hip, clear-cut and fast. Influences are evident – the album was produced by Kathy Valentine of the Go Go’s and lead singer/guitar player Adrian Conner plays in AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles. Conner’s playing is Angus Young-tinged, notably on “Loser” and “Rice N Bean.” “Modern Freedom” opens with heavy sonic crunch, boogie flavored “Rice N Bean” keeps the album solid and “Turn It Up” is an album highlight in which Conner’s chorus is on fire and Melodie Zapata’s drumming hammers away.

But instead of lingering in one area B.F.D. reveals a few surprises like its title track which could easily be mistaken for a Bangles song and a cover of “Radar Love”. The album makes a complete left turn with, gasp, a fantastic pop song – “Listening,” which soars like a great radio rock anthem and vocals like a teen queen. It takes the form to respectable, and renewed, heights.

For all its sonic boom there’s an off-balance quality to having sugary vocals placed against ragged rock music. It does not detract or sound out of place, except maybe for “Loser”. If anything, it adds an indifferent layer to the whole by a band is not stuck delivering all-out rock tunes for an album’s length. The result is a confident rock album by a band content to play around.


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review: Look Mexico - To Bed To Battle

Look Mexico
To Bed To Battle
Suburban Home, 2010

Not bigger, not badder, but Tallahassee's Look Mexico is different. Gone are most of the pretenses of light math-rock and obvious instrumental dueling; in are clever modern rock ballads with even a few alt-country hints. What stays are the funny song names, like "They Offered Me A Deal (I Said No, Naturally) and "Take It Upstairs, Einstein."

Look Mexico "You Stay. I Go. No Following." from Look Mexico HD on Vimeo.

All of this made me think of the lighter aspects of an emo band like Braid or the near dead-on mainstream interpretation of This Town Needs Guns or perhaps the dirtier version of White Rabbits and Tapes and Tapes. Or maybe I just described The Weakerthans. I think I did.

After the Gasp Asp EP, I expected more straight-ahead pop-punk-rock, but Look Mexico doesn't deliver that, instead choosing thoughtfulness more than any classifiable genre.

Take that Einstein song. "Am I the witty update on your screen?" is a nice line poked into a ballad with a recognizable, repeatable melody that kowtows more to...what? It's a good and powerful song, it's not a Look Mexico song, more apt for a side project.

This is an unusual play for more fans, obviously their ambitions go more than any light punk ghetto-ization would allow. Problem is I like this album and I like Look Mexico. "I Live My Life a Quarter Mile At A Time" reels in moody modern rock with a punch to the familiar, "Until The Lights Burn Out?" has this space freak out moment, and "They Offered Me A Deal..." may be the best pop-rock song ever written. The opener, "You Stay. I Go. No Following." is a perfectly played song, it arches and glides and peaks and I even want to sing along on the chorus. The requisite components for SUCCESS are there.

So I accept these rock songs for all their foibles, most of them stand better as single listening experiences than they do as a whole. Guess that doesn't matter, our existence is fragmented anyway, right?

Though with this record, I can't help but think of Look Mexico as appealing chameleons--and I'm sure their move to Austin, TX will not sort things out, but only add more to the mix.

This is a stab by Look Mexico at something somewhere, I'm just not sure the target has been set, the parameters established. Anything and everything is game, which may mean nothing will work. Or that anything has to work.



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