Tonight: His Mischief @ Turf Club; Mark Mallman, Crisis Line @ Triple Rock Social Club

His Mischief
The Perfect Lover
Grade: A-

Download: His Mischief - "Freaks Up Front"

If God wanted young men to forever remain frustrated for the rest of their lives, then the Good Lord would never have given musicians garage-rock.

Though the genre has existed through various permutations —and practitioners range from bands as old as ? and the Mysterians and as green-eared as Be Your Own Pet—throughout the decades, there are several constants. Namely, loud, brash guitar-chords, crashing drums, and thumping bass-lines.

His Mischief’s new album, The Perfect Lover, is hardly unique in this regard, as it has all three elements in spades.

But The Perfect Lover also contains that mysterious fourth element that has both flummoxed and elucidated bands present and past, regardless of genre: great songs. Much like an actual perfect lover, His Mischief start slow, then build steadily, to the point where by the time the likes of “Let’s Be Friends,” a White Stripes-esque barn-burner, and “Towering Filth”, a more mid-tempo punk song reminiscent of The Ramones, show up, listeners are effectively like putty in the band’s hands.

And that’s even before the raw power of “Trust or Love” shows up. For the sake of professionalism, it’s best not to describe entirely the, um, heightened effect that The Perfect Lover as a whole has on listeners. Instead, its best to enjoy Lover as one great track after another, and hope that there’s plenty of mischief left to come.

His Mischief's CD Release party
Turf Club
w/HARMAR/Dynamiters//Leisure Birds
1601 University Ave, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55104
Cost: 7.00

His Mischief MySpace Page




Crisis Line
Komi
Grade: B

Similarly, if the bearded man in the sky didn’t want musicians to be invited to the plastic pantomine by media monkies and their junky junkies, S/he wouldn’t have bestowed glam-rock upon plays either.

Indeed, Crisis Line’s latest album, Komi, starts off with enough synth fanfare to make admirers of David Bowie, Of Montreal and Van Halen smile knowingly. Encouragingly, the Minneapolis quartet share many of the more ambitious traits of those two glam titans, including bigger-than-life melodies, campy vocals, and histrionic songwriting.

Indeed, Komi references everything from new-wave to southern rap, and the kitchen-sink approach to music making works more often than not, especially on early, glam-and-new-wave-influenced tracks like "Billion Junkies" and "Amazing Comeback."

However, there are moments where Crisis Line swing, and whiff completely. Just when listeners thought that the band’s glittery bombast could benefit from hip-hop’s low-end rattle, “AMPMFMMayhem” shows up to prove everyone wrong in cringeworthy fashion. But even the band's miscalculations result in some fascinating, compellingly listenable moments, as "AMPMFMMayhem" does ultimately manage a chorus filled with lovely harmonies (same goes with the jarring "Teenage Magic").

After those mid-album stumbles, Crisis Line rebound and the rest of Komi plays out as a promising, very satisfying listen, regardless of whether you're 1986 David Bowie from the movie Labyrinth or 1980 David Bowie from the video "Ashes to Ashes"

Crisis Line play tonight with Mark Mallman and Greycoats at the Triple Rock Social Club.

Show deets:

March 13, 2009 (Fri)
21+ | 9:00 PM | $7.00