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Back
in the mid-to late 90’s and for a brief period of about a week I
listened daily to a Southern California band called The Bomboras.
Suddenly, one day I must have gotten up on the wrong side of the
bed or something because I got sick of their shit and slipped my
copy under my polka loving neighbor’s door. It was mostly the
fact that great share of their songs were instrumental and the
vocals, which were lame by the way, had been relegated to a mere
couple of songs which pushed my being over the frame and beyond
my doorway. I remember thinking their sound was empty and never
deserving of repetitive spins. Their album Head Shrinkin’ Fun
had been issued by Rob Zombie’s label Zombie A Go-Go, and I had
come to know the band as an avid reader of any hard rock
magazine I could get my hands on. Even if that meant the
embarrassment of walking up to the counter with a copy of Metal
Edge, I still did it. Such was my love of music, I had no shame.
So The Coffin Lids remind me of them, and so what? There is no
embarrassment involved this time around though, as The Coffin
Lids discharge their tamed brand of garage rock and do it
with such deadpan gusto I can’t help but like it at least a
little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah, not a lot, but hey at
least a little bit is something.
In a very shy way
The Coffin Lids are directly related to the whole psychobilly
scene that’s been formed around some Californian and some Danish
bands. The fact that these trio has such a light fun yet gloomy
moniker and that the drummer is named Damien should corroborate
such assertions. In a more bold way, the band is perhaps closer
in feel and spirit to 60’s surf rock, the sound of Dick Dale for
instance is felt strongly throughout the guitars. One would have
a hard time listening to a surf guitar rock inspired album
without being able to make such associations though.
Fronted by Skinny “Coffin” Mike, who also dubs playing the
‘damage guitar’, as detailed in the insert, The Coffin Lids play it direct and
simple, so simple in fact, that the guitars retain a single
tonality throughout each of the 14 cuts included here. When he
solos, and in such occasions the dude is so brief I bet he is a
shy boy with the sharing heart of a Lady Di, the band’s surf
influences clearly come to surface, while the rest of the time,
which is about 90% of the whole record, he is mostly busy
yelling lyrics about whiskey drinking women, losing one’s mind,
creepy crawlers and slave chicks. Light stuff, to have fun with
and not much else, it won’t cause a revolution, perhaps not even
an unnoticeable dent in your vinyl façade, or a temporal scar in
your chin, but hell not all music shall be revolutionary. The
spirit of revivalism is enough for most of us, especially when
one considers that half the world equates the sounds of heavy
metal with the fetid sound of Godsmack, the sounds of pop with
the vomitive bubble gum of Shakira, and the sounds of punk with
the fake-ass, must have tattoos or you ain’t for real attitude
of Good fucking Charlotte.
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