Record Reviews #4

Black Time
Beat of the Traps 7”
Yakisikana

Black Time is one of my new favorite bands. After hearing their Blackout CD on In the Red, I was hooked. Great trashed-out garage punk songs, with a blues edge. The B side “Crawlin” is my favorite, but I have a tendency to lean toward the flipside of records. I know this is an import, but you’ll wanna find a way to get a copy of this!

Fe Fi Fo Fums
Shake All Night LP
Boom Boom of Renton

Finally! A full length LP from these great, Seattle garage punkers! Fans of Supercharger, Metros and Black Lips rejoice! If you didn’t get a chance to grab the Electrofize Me 7”, well it’s on this LP, along with a bunch of other greats. The title track is right on, along with “One More Chance”, “Jackie Be Good” and my favorite, “Fuck New Wave”. The artwork is simple, and effective, the music is a couple chords with some fuzzy vocals and straightforward lyrics. Features the drummer of another great Seattle band, the Suspicions. This is one of the best records I’ve heard so far this year.

Knaughty Knights
Tommy of the River 7”
Shattered

Right off the bat, I had to think, who does this remind me of? Then it hit me: THE MARKED MEN. It’s the vocals. The A side is more punky than the only other song I’ve heard from them, which is “Death has come over me”, which is on their Goner single (which I still need to track down), and also on the Goner Records SXSW CDr. This is some fun stuff. Geek fact: features Jack Yarber (Oblivians, Compulsive Gamblers).

V/A
The Funhouse Comp Thing CD
MyFatAss Productions

I first heard about this comp months ago when the Invisible Eyes came to town, and I was DJing at the show they played at. We got to talking about Seattle, and they mentioned this compilation. A few months later, KDVS got a copy of this record, so I decided to throw it on.
Kicking off this CD is the Fe Fi Fo Fums, a band that immediately grabbed me a year or so earlier with their great 7inch on Boom Boom of Renton, and who now have an awesome LP out on the same label. The Invisible Eyes cover “Spooky”, which they played live when I saw them, which is a great match for them, and some other standouts include tracks by the Primate 5, Head, Pulses, Freak Outs, Armitage Shanks, the Blank Its and the Bugs.
www.thefunhouseseattle.com