Dynamo Hum – Four Cute Creatures (10″)
What we have here is the rhythm section from the late and sadly underappreciated Screaming Blue Messiahs (and if that name means nothing to you, get thee to the used CD pile and start hunting), joined up with Ricky Maguire (The Men They Couldn’t Hang) and harpist Tony Moon (Motor Boys Motor, Messiahs lyricist, Robyn Hitchcock film director), produced by Hitchcock’s longtime associate Pat Collier.
This fell into my hands simply because another writer, a fellow foolish enough to have a record label, wants to put out a full-length by these chaps, and wondered if the alt-country crowd would appreciate such unrepentant post-blues. And I think so, if you can imagine a band midway between Jon Spencer, Masters of Reality and Monkeywrench. If they were more like a well-schooled (but still shambolic) garage band. And there’s like fiddle sawing and stuff going on, so there’s enough twang quotient to cross over.
Or perhaps it’s the Yardbirds gone country. Anyway, “Drunken Angel” is a bent kind of masterpiece, and the other three songs are pretty damn good, and I hope the full-length does come out in the States. Meanwhile…