Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Spin Heartless Bastards at Exit/In, 8/18/09
Posted by The Spin on Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 10:14 AM
It's official: The Heartless Bastards win. They've managed to bookend Middle Tennessee's summer of 2009 with two seriously badass shows. The first show, at Bonnaroo in Manchester, managed to cut through a hangover of Hemingway-esque proportions. (Seriously, if we were the proverbial old man, then Bonnaroo was a big-ass fish dragging us to the depths of the briny deep.) The second show, at the Exit/In on Tuesday, rocked our ass so thoroughly we almost forgot that we were--gasp!--sober. (Hey, even The Spin acts responsible once in a while!) We are quite pleased to say that regardless of one's chemical state, the Ohio quartet will rip you a new one like a Rust Belt tornado in a trailer park.
Lead Bastard singer/guitarist Erika Wennerstrom's voice is captivating, throaty and unique--somewhere between the bayou-country blues belter Bobbie Gentry and punk's high priestess Patti Smith--and when she started wailing on her golden Gibson Les Paul, The Spin shed a little tear for the man himself and his most marvelous of all inventions. Multi-track recording is nice and all, but c'mon folks, is there anything more beautiful than a solid-body guitar cranked up and fuzzed out? Nope, didn't think so. The Spin demands that Les Paul's face be added to Mount Rushmore, as it is the only fitting tribute to the man's deeds. Seriously.
Wennerstrom's songs are just as unique as her voice, pulling from the more murderous end of American folk, the heaviest side of classic rock and the more beguiling hooks from the indie underground. If we were obnoxious rock critics (and we are) we'd say it was like Ms. Wennerstorm had hijacked Leslie West's Mountain and taken it on a Nantucket Sleighride through Dave Edmund's Rockpile--heavy as hell, catchy as a motherfucker, an unstoppable force of epic beauty like an avalanche of awesome. Go buy their new album The Mountain. You will not be disappointed--and if you are disappointed, then, well, there is very little hope for you.
And a quick aside to frequent Cream commenter and all-around internet all-star TobintheGnome (but you can substitute any thirty-something record nerd of your choosing): Dude, you shoulda been there to catch Colour Revolt. The Spin admits that we don't know each other well IRL, as they say, but we know that we've seen you tagged in enough those "list albums you like" chain mails on the facebooks to we feel confident saying that you would've dug it, totes fer realzys. Their 2008 album Plunder, Beg and Curse didn't really ping our radar, if y'know what we mean, but the live show was something else--landing between shimmering space and vintage Southern indie swing like The Grifters with more shoegaze-y parts and sweeter vocals. It was rad, dude, we just wanted to make sure we didn't forget to tell you. It was totally up your alley.
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