Pardon the recent morbid content of our posts lately, and stomach just one more gut punch for the sake of our new friends Obits. Then we promise to resume taking our Xanax and get back to all the freak-folkin noise-poppin goodness. Ahem.
Rick Froberg, formerly of Drive Like Jehu, ditches the humidity of his previous efforts for some stark, but equally turbulent garage rock. I Blame You, their forthcoming debut on Sub Pop, is full of dirty post-punk blues swervin’ on the shoulder of the highway like the contorted French Connection chase songs of Josef K.
“We just go ahead and play the stuff we like,” says Froberg addressing Obits‘ relatively straight-froward sound, going on to add, “we don’t worry about originality per se, because that takes care of itself.” Clearly, this approach hasn’t worked for everyone, but I Blame You makes a decent case for itself. It is both conscious and irreverent of its surroundings. There are obvious nods to trail-blazers The Gun Club when the psychobilly beat creeps in, and a few stray glances towards their Smelly peers like Abe Vigoda when things get all scatter-brained, but Obits only use this a frame of reference, and the idiosyncrasies are what truly hold this release afloat.
I Blame You is available on March 24th from the folks at Sub Pop.
MP3 :::
Obits – I Blame You
Obits – Milk Cow Blues
