The Good Guys are disturbed men. Fortunately, they are willing, nay, needing to share their disturbances with us. On their first full length release entitled The Social Engagement, The Good Guys plumb the depths of psychological despair, angst and confusion with a sonic barrage of metallic noise, which alternately drips with jazzy proto-lounge weirdness, and swirls with psychedelic tinges of circus dementia. The first track, “Ruptura” recalls the glory days of the Noise / Am Rep nineties, opening with a killer technical metal riff before driving straight ahead with a pounding four-four beat. The distorted vocals of Felix Thundercat bring to mind The Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes if he swallowed a pack of Sucrets. Moog-like keyboard flourishes fill out the track as, near the end, it delves into the frenetic strangeness that defines the rest of the album. “Hault” introduces the loungey motif with a Leslie-esque, underwater sound. The group flexes the depth of its musical knowledge throughout, alternately touching on sixties Brazilian styles in “The Social Engagement” and a Grease-like take on fifties ballads in the intro to “Happy Hour.” Something tells me they’ve listened to their fair share of Tzadik releases as well, as their experimental schizophrenia swells to even include touches of The Wall-era Pink Floyd. Other acts the album brings to mind include The Melvins, Chrome / Helios Creed and Australia’s Lubricated Goat, who tinkered with a psychedelic, noisy lounge sound on their album, Plays the Devil’s Music. But, The Social Engagement is no mere collection of nods to great noisy weirdoes of the past. While the album oozes from the same great primordial muck of experimental rock that gave us Zappa and Beefheart, with this record, The Good Guys stare bravely into the unstable, chaotic future, and produce a vision as thick as it is supple.
Jeremy Tuman
Thanks Jeremy!
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