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www.churchonthursday.com
Selby Tigers
Charm City
Hopeless Records
2000
It's like somebody took five of my favorite
bands, placed them in a blender, and pressed
"puree". The result is a delicious punk rock smoothie that floods
my taste buds with fuzzy guitars, male/female vocal interplay (not unlike
The Rezillos), and even the occasional synthetic hand clap.
Charm City transports me back to the punk/new wave of yore (that even I'm too young to remember) with dueling guitars ala Wire, snarling (but kind of cute in the same way) female vocals akin to The Avengers or X-Ray Spex, and quirky rhythms reminiscent of early Devo. Hopeless Records has hit the jackpot once again (after signing fellow Minnestota rockers Dillinger Four) with this St. Paul quartet. Twelve songs here and not one is a loser.
Two-decades-or-more worth of influences pop up left and right throughout this disc--but in combinations that make Selby Tigers difficult to categorize. Witness the Devo/Gang of Four/Fugazi (!)-ness of "Sidewalk" or "Motorway", which begins like The Cure's "Jumping Someone Else's Train" then moves in a Slits/Raincoats direction, and ends sounding like a cross between Wire and X-Ray Spex. Recycled using the finest of taste.
--Felix
Thursday