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Rocket from the Crypt: Group Sounds
BY JULIA KRIPKE
Rocket from the Crypt is back on the indie scene with a bang. Group Sounds, the band's first full-length since leaving Interscope for Vagrant Records, showcases one of the most all-out, aggressive rock 'n roll sounds around today. Relentless drums combine with a dual-guitar onslaught to punish those who thought fury and modern rock had become mutually exclusive.
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Sounds' opening chainsaw guitar on "Straight American Slave" suggests that the album's closest kin are Rocket releases such as Scream, Dracula, and Circa: Now!, not its immediate predecessor, 1998's RFTC. With polished arrangements and clearer production, RFTC offered a mature, cohesive effort; Sounds breaks from this with a loose collection of songs that recapture the band's old raucous urgency. But this isn't just some retro garage rock act: the opener's screaming chorus, "Holy water pours out of stretch marks from our past," falls far short of maudlin nostalgia.
Throughout the album, the six-piece band engages in a complex instrumental interplay that propels frontman Speedo's tales of the ugly, inevitable fate awaiting foolish naïveté. Divisive drums, snake-charmer guitar riffs, and sinuous horns render "Venom Venom" a haunting track with hints of a lounge exotica sound. The bands rips through "White Belt" at breakneck speed, recounting one novice's bloody recklessness. Consequence finally catches up with him in "Dead Seeds," when Speedo laments that "guilty thorns will break off and tear you up...dead on the vine" in a slower, mournful vocal.
But while Rocket may slow the tempo from time to time, its ferocity never flags as desperate energy spills over throughout Sounds. A musically and emotionally twisting and turning album that grabs the listener from its first riff, Group Sounds is a happy return to form. (Vagrant)
All materials © 2001 The Yale Herald, Inc., and its staff.
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