Nauseating, you could say. But then you could also say that about riding the Big One rollercoaster in dead seaside town Blackpool after a few jars and with a mild trepidation of heights, and that turned out to be an awful lot of fun in the end. The man’s voice is almost certain to leave you suffering from motion sickness at points, but it’s much less dental-drill-through-polystyrene than Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and a little less psychotic-hick than Modest Mouse, making it practically agreeable. And when entwined with the squinted, slanted creativity of both of those bands it makes for a cloudy witches brew with a distinguished face and plenty of crafty unseen right hooks.
It leads off with the 2 singles thus far (‘We Used To Vacation’ and ‘Hang Me Out To Dry’) which are a more than proficient introduction to their classic desert blues base, blindfolded, spun into a funk several times and then pushed off to find its balance, and thus a formidable gateway into the record. Especially the wired climbing timbre of his vocal on the latter. But if anything the real fun is yet to be had, once they’re beyond formalities and their hair is really let down – in their own words there’s “enough to go around” (‘Hair Down’). Most of the album is so freewheeling you can only presume they drained their own brake fluid. A-B doesn’t really seem an option.
There is evidence, especially on the voodoo carnival dance ‘Passing The Hat’, of label-mate Jack White’s foray into blues eccentricity on ‘Get Behind Me Satan’, and you can only hope they are indulged the same distance as White. Much more likely though will be the creative arc already followed by the aforementioned Modest Mouse, with whom they share much kinship. No song is unusual enough not to be stirred up a snatch more, no melodic road too straight not to turn off suddenly into the rough and churn up some dirt and old bones.
‘Saint John’ is smothered in the just the kind of character that makes this record, a riot of possessed percussion in a dusty bare-knuckle scrap with its rhythm section partner, the mean bass, as Nathan Willet spins a peaking tale of death row inmate awaiting a pardon in between blows. It’s Tom Waits weird, sure, but sweetened so Tapes ‘N’ Tapes fans can find much to love. ‘Robbers’ and ‘God, Make Up Your Mind’ might tone down the eccentricities to sparkle under lower lights, for the most part, but the glitterball’s still stuttering and strobing, there is never much usual knocking about. And things are always dressed in Willet’s acute lyrics, squeezed just out of shape to perfection. Nauseating yes, but you got used to that queer drunk feeling after a couple of goes, right?