Holy Roller Novocaine

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Retro rocking has rarely looked or sounded so good. Britain seemed to be league leader in producing retro-ists but in the past two years US record labels have proven remarkably adept at packaging up old American marquee fillers in new faces. The Strokes are probably the best example of a sound and a personality that would look remarkably home in a teenage Lester Bangs notepad. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club , for all their brilliance, strike a pose that's self-consciously 70s while their guitar tabs are positively psychedelic.

Rock kid haircuts are staying positively Almost Famous , the jeans and scruffy tight t-shirt remain. Perhaps it's a progressive thing, and perhaps it's another manifestation of younger musicians deciding there's nothing worthy of a reference in the contemporary hit parade. Latest, and most potently, into the fray are Kings of Leon, a quartet of young Tennesseans. This band's a Followill family affair: The name is also familial: A taste in rock and soul records and an enlightened approach to teaching produced him a family of road-hardened rock stars.

According to their label blurb writers Kings of Leon songs " teem with primal emotions and rangy rhythms - noise sensed as sanctuary, friction felt as release, honesty jumped on for all it's worth because it's the only bankable road to salvation. The vocals are deep and half high-school geeky but make an impression pretty quickly. This mood of pop on the album is reminiscent of The Wallflowers while the vocals remind me a lot of Anthony Keidis and many bluegrass singers.

The guitars are straight-up southern rock and roll and moving, but blend into the whole country aura too well.

The bass is grooving and just might be the most respectable part of their music, by plain and simply not making an ass of itself. It shines most on the song Holy Roller Novocaine. Again, however, add all of it up and you get quite a conventional band… and if not conventional, then dull.

• Holy Roller Novocaine.
• Aus der Rede Ottilie Baaders auf der Internationalen Konferenz Sozialistischer Frauen vom August 1907 in Stuttgart: Eine Quelleninterpretation (German Edition).
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It must sound weird to talk about George Clooney and Triscuits when looking over a band, but what can you really say about a band that has such a past and play such music? Cloudcasts by Feedback Deficiency on Mixcloud.

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