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Various

Kiss or Kill (2004)
War Room

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Contributed by: Jesse
(others by this writer | submit your own)

Published on July 9th 2004

Besides a few songs on here, this CD could generally be summed up by two influences: Social Distortion and the garage rock fad.

Five of the eleven bands are female fronted. I've never really been a fan of female fronted 3-chord punk. I don't want to hear sugary vocals over grungy grinding guitars. I want something snarling and ugly. That being said, The Randies deliver a very *yawn* boring 3 chord, sugary pop-punk track. Standard, by the book. Next, Deadbeat Sinatra does the same, only with a singer that emulates Mike Ness to the T. Then the Dollyrots sing a song about beating up any boys that are going to break the singers heart, Jackie Chan style. So far, this comp has me drooling out pieces of the cough drop that I'm chewing on for lack of proper brain exercise.

Then Midway comes in with a synth-pop tune akin to The Rentals. It's cutesy, it's poppy, it's got sugary vocals, it's about sex in cars and drugs and rock n' roll. Who can argue with that? There's nothing like bouncy pop about dirty sex and drugs and rock n' roll. After that, Billion Stars deliver a bar rock song complete with cowbell. It's really annoying. Bang Sugar Bang give us more boring poppy-punk. Zeitgeist Auto Parts follow the formula.

The O.A.O.T.'s contribute something more like an 80s mainstream punk ballad. You know, like Modern English. It's listenable. The Letter Openers generally follow the formula but do it with about 8 chords. Silver Needle plays a slower song, reminiscent of The O.A.O.T's track. King Cheetah rocks the final track with a slow spacey jam. Like a classic rock version of Built to Spill.

There you have it folks, another comp destroyed by the reviewing machine. I rule. This comp doesn't.

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Anonymous (July 19, 2004)

jesse sure is a god when it comes to knowing what good music is......are you about 12 years old? wanker.

Anchors (July 13, 2004)

Knapsack were incredible.

Jesse (July 11, 2004)

Well, I liked The Promise Ring a lot (see Lars Fredrikson post).

The Weakerthans, Death Cab For Cutie, I'll admit to enjoying The Postal Service, Andrew WK's "I Get Wet" is an amazing piece of music, does hip-hop count?, I love Dillinger Four, I enjoyed Knapsack a lot (even though I despise The Jealous Sound), Ted Leo & Pharmacists are amazing, Tom Waits.

Shit. You've got a point. In my personal music collection, I don't have a lot of modern simple music. Most of the artist I listed up there aren't my favorites, either. I guess I can say that the reason is I just think older bands did it with a bit more soul. I guess I have a supreme weakness for technicality and musicianship.

This doesn't mean that I'm unfair to modern simple music. I just think that it's been done so much that it needs to be done well. The Hives do it well in my book.

Anonymous (July 10, 2004)

What modern bands do you like, Jesse, that don't involve themselves in "crazy tempo changes" or super technical grooves or whatnot? This isn't a challenge, I'm just asking.

-BSD

Jesse (July 10, 2004)

If it's good, I'll like it. Seriously, you listen to this stuff. It's just not good. If someone gave me good garage/punk to review, I'd give it a good review. I have nothing against simple music: my favorite band is The Velvet Underground.

Anonymous (July 9, 2004)

I still don't understand why people who review records for a site called "punk news" don't like garage rock/SIMPLE music. I mean, if you're one of those "I only like it if it changes up 3 times before the end of the song" guys, fine, but chances are you probably don't like very much punk rock/underground rock, anyway, so why do you review it?

-BSD

Anonymous (July 9, 2004)

What's this big "garage rock" fad? When the Strokes and the Hives were popular for two weeks a couple of years ago?

Anchors (July 9, 2004)

I knew I was wrong on that, I was just hoping nobody would notice.

Somewhat related, Anchorman is going to be hilarious.