The Batlord

The Punk that LA Forgot: Part VII

Well, I had to get around to them eventually, so I might as well get it out of the way...




There's something not dumb about this. On the one hand, this is some catchy, kickass punk, but on the other I can tell that these people know how to read. It's nothing to do with the lyrics (I'm not really paying attention to them as usual). There's just a maturity here. Whether it's the singers who remind me more of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon than Joe Strummer or Poly Styrene or the fact that they can drop a Chuck Berry influence that both sounds like Chuck Berry and actually fits into the song there's more to X than one might expect. I've heard that X could actually play, and were choosing simplicity rather than having it forced upon them, and even I can hear that there is more going on here than the same two dimensional punk of their peers. Being a structure retard I can't put my finger on it, but I could swear that under the guise of punk rock I'm listening to an album of well-put-together songs that someone other than a strungout art school dropout might be proud to make. This must be a bit of a tightrope walk to keep from sounding too cerebral, lest you lose your punk rock edge.

Damn. Last song "The World's a Mess, It's In My Kiss" definitely gives their skill away. Near the end there is a keyboard solo that is just brilliant. It's obviously no cro-mag pounding, yet it meshes perfectly with the punk riffing going on underneath. It's about as perfect an ending to an album as I've ever heard.

Well, that was bitchin'. Gonna have to check their next album out soon. Possibly tomorrow. Or I might just touch myself instead. I haven't decided.

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