Big Stir 2024
Inside Out & Backwards
Detroit Rock City denizens drive yellow buses from garage to memorable suburb bases they inhabited for decades on end.
It’s not serrated riffs and cocky attitude that scream “Punk!” and smear graffiti-esque sonics all over this arresting platter; it’s the fact that the Michiganders who made this record deliver their second album almost 35 years after the band’s debut “Look In Your Mind” was tossed towards a post-grunge landscape. It’s not as if the Hockeytown quartet cared, then or now, and it’s not as if the foursome’s current age gets in the way of their sophomore effusiveness; it’s the experience-derived attention to detail and appraisal of nuance that make “Inside Out & Backwards” as genuinely irresistible as any combo consisting of high-school pals could hope for. So for every tight knot they tie on the songs here, there’s an exquisite passage to loosen the music’s tight grip on the listener’s jugular.
So don’t get confused or consumed by the sharp attack of Pat Kelly and Dennis Pepperack’s guitars and the frenetic groove of the Lawson cousins, bassist Ray and drummer Darrin, which tellingly titled opener “When I Grow Up” springs on you only to sweeten the aural assault with the ’60s inspired call-and-response and the “Never gonna happen!” refrain, and don’t latch onto “Funhouse” which offers a homage to a certain ensemble from the same state via rough-cut sarcasm. With lead voices flowing between all four players, you’d do much better digging the dynamic depth of rock ‘n’ roll “Far Away” which exchanges initial frenzy for romantic tune, or the equally lyrical and frantic “Back Into Eloise” which eschews ferocity in favor of flamenco lace right in the middle of its infectious swirl. But while the resonant, roaring “Someday” exudes cinematic gloom before turning in a belligerent six-string solo and underpinning the melody with xylophone, “Soda Pop” proposes spiky powerpop to those who want to see whether Chris Spedding‘s “Motorbikin'” can be relocated to Motor City, and “Man Of Few Words” adds heavy funk figures to the mix that expand the group’s sound palette. And while the psychedelic “When You” oozes an exuberantly innocent noise, “Go Away” packs homespun philosophy of the “there is no tomorrow without a yesterday” line into an a-cappella-encrusted candy box.
So once “I Told Myself (Absolutely Nothing)” brings this vocal roundabout to a triumphant close, casual listeners are bound to become the band’s fans. An incurable bunch, indeed.
*****
