Reykjavík Grapevine - 22.05.2015, Blaðsíða 20

Reykjavík Grapevine - 22.05.2015, Blaðsíða 20
Album Reviews Amtmannsstíg 1 • 101 Reykjavík • +354 561 3303 • www.torfan.is experience classical cuisine RESTAURANT- BAR 6.990 kr. Vesturgata 3B | 101 Reykjavík | Tel: 551 2344 | www.tapas.is Taste the best of Iceland ... ... in one amazing meal ICELANDIC GOURMET FEAST Starts with a shot of the infamous Icelandic spirit Brennívín Followed by 7 delicious tapas Smoked puffin with blueberry “brennivín” sauce Icelandic sea-trout with peppers-salsa Lobster tails baked in garlic Pan-fried line caught blue ling with lobster-sauce Grilled Icelandic lamb Samfaina Minke Whale with cranberry & malt-sauce And for dessert White chocolate "Skyr" mousse with passion fruit coulis late night dining Our kitchen is open until 23:30 on weekdays and 01:00 on weekends 20 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 6— 2015MUSIC Boys and girls, we live in dank, dire times. It’s bad enough that our lives are dictated to us by a herd of inbred fools, but in music terms, it’s becoming intolerable, and scanning the state of the Icelandic “rock and roll” landscape today only brings tears of despair. There’s the car- toon hard-rock orthodoxy of the Vin- tage Caravan and the fetid authenticity fetishism of Blueshammer Kaleo. And then there’s Bubbi Morthens, a bitter punk turned scenic storyteller turned whiny media whore turned Widow Twanky pantomime dame with his Dim- ma wank-bot backing band. The real nadir has been the fact that Monotown, a band that makes Doves sound like the end of Western civilisation, won the best rock album at this year’s Iceland Music Awards, causing yours truly to spit his homeopathic Icelandic Skyr over his artisan beard shouting, “WTF?? Are you fucking kidding me Iceland??” as blobs of creamy cheese splattered the TV screen. Truly, these people are the walking dead. But as Greil Marcus once said, the sad thing is not that rock and roll is dead, it’s that we refuse to let it die. No matter how dull, washed-out or mori- bund the situation gets, we still cling on in hope for a band to come along, a band that sups from the spring of rock and roll “spirit,” an increasingly hidden reservoir of bile, sex, fury and death. Pink Street Boys is one band you can at least say provides us with that vicari- ous thrill, if but for a moment. On the back of some incendiary performances in bars and venues all over downtown, PSB have developed a reputation for chaotic intensity smothered with hairy chests and squalling feedback. With energy spurting off in all directions, they ooze a sweaty, ugly, thuggish mas- culinity that’s bathed in leather and homoeroticism (Check out their video to “Evel Knievel,” where they’ve been kept captive in Kenneth Anger’s art dungeon and fed a diet of booze, pop- pers and paint thinner). True, bands like Singapore Sling may implore to you that they “just wanna rock and roll,” but with PSB, you stand there in the crowd thinking that at any moment all it would take is a single spark for it to completely kick off. Of course it’s one thing to have a combustible live sound, but it’s another transferring it onto record. And while many have stumbled at this hurdle, I’m pleased to report that PSB’s latest al- bum, ‘Hits #1’, manages to hold on and contain their live energy. Even before you put the record on the player, the cover throbs with a sleazy aura with the schlock horror pen art of Viðar Alexan- der Jónsson displaying grotesque flesh, slime, and cartoon violence stained in sickly purples and greens. This is a re- cord that doesn’t want to be HEY! nice, chipper, or pleasant. No, this is an al- bum that wants to be as icky, nasty, and dirty (oo-er missus) as possible. From the opening bars of “Body Language” that come at you like a how- itzer before the drums kick in and blow the doors off, PSB don’t stop to even think about things like #feelings or cry- ing while masturbating. Life’s waaay too short for that. It’s an album that’s a short sharp shock, clocking in at under 25 minutes (It’s taken me longer go to the toilet), where the only purpose is to rock hard with determination, to ex- plode before they blow themselves out. And in this barrage of noise, a defi- nite hat tip goes to PSB for their work on overall sound of the album (I’m guessing a large amount that there was smoke coming from the mixing desk when Curver Thoroddsen was master- ing). Amongst the scuzzy redlining mix of pounding drums, blitzkrieg guitars and springy bass, ‘Hits #1’ is stuffed with lots of clever little overdubs, overloading delay and reverb effects smearing the vocals until they become nothing more than a series of abstract primal howls and shrieks. So far the only lyrics I can make out are “KICK. THE. FUCK. OUT!” on “Kick the Trash Out.” Or at least I think that’s what they are shouting. Now, it’s worth noting there’s not that much in ‘Hits #1’ that you can say is different, new or even original within the canon of rock and roll. From Jerry Lee Lewis to the MC5 to Iggy Pop, punk and beyond, music of this form has been played by self-destructive freaks ever since the guitar became electri- fied. In fact the semi-previous incarna- tion of PSB, The Dandelion Seeds, was very much a cliché-ridden throwback to 1960s psych hippie bullshit. But you cannot deny the violent power of ‘Hits #1’, and the way that PSB uses it as a blunt, dumb instrument to bludgeon you with. When they sing “This is rock and roll/this is what we got/this is how we do it” on “Anthem,” you know that this is the only way they can do it. There is no other option but to go down in a ball of fury and flames. - BOB CLUNESS Pinks Street Boys Hits #1 (2015) facebook.com/PinkStreetBoys KILL! DESTROY! SCHNELL! AAAARGH!

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