Tour Dates
10/17/09 Dante’s @ Scion Garage Fest
From Vice Records THE ALMIGHTY DEFENDERS HAVE ARRIVED! The day we have all been waiting for has finally arrived, the album is in stores today! and it’s chalk full of gospel garage punk jammers! Run on down to your local independent record store and pick up your very own vinyl copy of The Almighty Defenders debut release. Or you can order it right here! We also have a full album stream going down right now on AOL’s Spinner, just to get you amped before 5 o’clock rolls around and you can get your butt to the record store. Check it out here! If you’re in the Portland or North West area, you are lucky enough to catch one of a very few planned shows on Oct 17th at Dante’s during the Scion Garage Fest. Free with RSVP! CLICK HERE TO HAVE THE VINYL SHIPPED TO YOUR DOORSTEP CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THE DOWNLOAD OF THE ALBUM |
THE ALMIGHTY DEFENDERS
THE ALMIGHTY DEFENDERS
VICE 2009
Rousing opener “All My Loving” shimmies from the mugginess of some unseen swamp shack and keels forth with a slack-tongued call-and-response refrain, an element featured many times over on subsequent tracks. The bass line is hot-handed; the percussion is most likely the walls and furniture; the production is coarsely ground. Bearing the swagger of an unplanned drunk with unexpected guests, the track behaves as though someone pressed ‘record’ and the resulting sessions issued hence from this very spot. Hanging on its shoulders is second track “The Ghost With the Most,” a spooky, slouchy conversation about the next world. Here, that 'gospel' tag catches the light a little; the Defenders are dipping into spiritual subject matter, although it’s clearly of the non-practicing variety. The flat chorus of sha-la-las-- sung by the Black Lips boys in winking deadpan—sounds like a roundup of local ne’er-do-wells enlisted to paint a few fences. The boisterous vocal red-liner “Bow Down and Die” sounds like someone paid those same ne’er-do-wells for their services in liquor.
Moving beyond the drunken exuberance of the opening tracks is the near-tearjerker “Jihad Blues,” which, despite its slow swayin’ and splashes of sax to taste, isn’t much more than a (soulfully executed) joke. Appearing inexplicably where the peak should be are the ensuing tracks “30 Second Air Blast” and “Death Cult Soup n’ Salad,” two nearly identical cuts whose time-out acts as the smoke break at a get-down all the poltergeists are having in your absence. Somebody comes back to their senses with latter-half kneeslapper “She Came Before Me” --yet another song employing the failsafe combo of tambourine, simple licks, echoes, and callbacks—but the spoken farewell sermon right after it (“The Great Defender”) confounds everything anew.
The Almighty Defenders is fortunate to be propelled by catchy hooks and gritty sonic crackle, but it’s likely that, if not for its members, the album could be dismissed as a gimmicky head-scratcher. Gospel? Maybe in caricature, as a few timely whoops and “oh lawdy”s do not a gospel record make. The album is best for listeners who like their instrumentation rhythmic and unfettered by filler; the ideal candidate is a fan of both groups in their original format. Nevertheless, it's a warm, woolly, and strangely intimate recording-- as if a coupla buzzed cronies made some tapes over the weekend meant only for one another. Think of it as a big, bouncing, funny-looking baby-- although you're happy for the parents, you've also had to imagine them having sex.
Check out: "All My Loving", "The Ghost With The Most", "Jihad Blues", "She Came Before Me"
09/22/2009 21:31:54 ♥ artie () ♥ myspace.com/thealmightydefenders ♥ viceland.com/vicerecords
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