Hot Sugar

Okay, as promised, here's a record review. I'm not sure when it came out, but I think it was in the past month. Today's review is of the brand spankin' new Mooney Suzuki record, "Alive and Amplified." First off, I want to start with a little back-story. Sometime around the year 2000, the NYC band played a free show at the Magic Stick in Detroit. I don't really know the circumstances around the show, as far as why they were there playing for free, why they were playing in the space behind the bar, or who they knew amongst the budding local garage rock elite. I should know, I worked there almost seven days a week at the time, but I was probably drunk. No wait, I remember, I was drunk, that's right. I think the connection involved the White Stripes somehow. Anyway, the handful of people who got to see that show were fuckeen blown away. This shit was hot. Lots of '60s rock 'n' roll energy. Their first album, "People Get Ready" came out that year, and it was full of the Kinks and the MC5 on coke. Lots of cliche, but it was the good kind, not the kind that gets old quick. A couple years later, in 2002, they put out their next album, "Electric Sweat." I heard it, I wasn't all that impressed. It just wasn't as focused as "PGR." I should probably go back and listen to it again. So...with all of this underground credibility (hot sounds and hot friends) behind them, the garage underground was horrified to find out that the Matrix were producing Mooney Suzuki's new major label album. Yes, horrified. If you aren't familiar, the Matrix are the production team best known for making Avril Lavigne an alterna-rock goddess of sorts. Thus the feeling of defeat that is felt by MS's fans. They are justified. Just slightly. Okay, the band has never been known for spectacularly insightful lyrics. The real pull of this band is how they manage to emulate so much good party rock n roll, like the MC5, Mott the Hoople, the rockin' side of the Kinks, the Faces, and Humble Pie. The previous records sounded dirty and tough, full of soul. This record accomplishes none of that. You could say this is their Lenny Kravitz record. I'm not sure how to fully explain myself on that one. It's glossy, but rockin'. There's definitely a new approach going on here. Sometimes, the studio tricks are a bit too much, and sometimes they work. The title track's chorus vocals sound fucking incredible. The drums are huge, the keyboard is tight. It's all there, it's all good. But, when "New York Girls" fades out towards the end, then comes back in again all strong for the coda, it just sounds like they're trying too hard to emulate '70s radio rock. The first track, "Primitve Condition" has a guitar line that's phased, and it just doesn't fit. You can tell they didn't use an analog guitar pedal, they used a rack-mounted digital effects processor, and didn't even try to make it feel warm. The whole record just sounds like it gave the Matrix a chance to pull out all the stops and make a huge gradiose self-indulgent rock record. I don't know whose influence is involved here, but even the song titles and the cover art reflect a big change for the band. They want to be big rock stars so badly it hurts. The album art actually looks like a combination of throwaways from the artist who did the cover of "Abraxas" from Santana, every Funkadelic record, and "Bitches Brew" from Miles Davis. Previous albums were very lo-fi with the artwork. Song titles in the past were just song titles, nothing special, but this album's all about standing on top of your guitar amp while coaxing the crowd into clapping along with the song and that sexual strut. Okay, maybe this is where the Lenny Kravitz thing comes in, because I think he can get away with song titles like "Shake That Bush Again" and "Loose 'n' Juicy." Yeah, you read that right. We're talkin' about four white guys from New York City who just lost all their soul, they have no place writing songs about those things.

Bottom line: this is a highly, yes, highly entertaining record, but you're much better off going back and getting the first one if you don't already have it. Then go out and buy everything from the MC5 and the Faces, because they had the soul that Mooney Suzuki lost in this translation. Get "Alive and Amplified" out of a used bin if you can.