It's a diverse world out there kids. Mysterious, shadowed sub-genres roam the back alleys of the musical cityscape while the quirky offspring of styles once thought utterly incompatible stroll boldly down your neighborhood sidewalk. There's something to be said for the humid greenhouse of experimentation we seem to be living in these days. I don't hear many people complaining about The Postal Service, The Dillinger Escape Plan, or The Flaming Lips, just some of the current leaders in the pack of genre-melding groups putting out good, interesting records in the last few years.
And yet.
No matter how many twists and turns you go through in the maze that is your musical life, no matter how many different styles you sample, no matter how fickle your heart may prove and how varyingly tight your jeans subsequently reflect that infidelity, no matter where you go or what you do there will always be a time and place for coming back to the classics. And by the classics I of course mean... good old rock and roll.
When I was but a suckling babe, my wet nurse told me fables about a land of peace, prosperity, guitars and long hair, where mighty bands performed mighty deeds and championed the cause of simple, catchy melodies, driving rhythms and good choruses. Chicago's Tight Phantomz take us back to that land. By the time we get there we're so glad to be home we kind of forget who brought us in the first place, but hey.
A third of you thought of The Beatles when I initially mentioned good old rock and roll. The other two thirds thought of Little Richard and Oasis respectively. All three parties were dead wrong. The real land of good old rock and roll which the Tight Phantomz take us to is the land where space ships in the shape of Gibson Les Pauls hover over moats surrounding the castles of great kings like Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Led Zeppelin; 1960's and 70's Guitar Rock.
Each of the five songs on this EP has something going for it in terms of classic rockery. Lead singer Mike Lust can belt out a raspy melody pretty well; on "Ninja Talk" perhaps even more than the other tracks he sounds like he's channeling Steven Tyler. His voice goes up at the end of each line and I can almost see him hunched in a palsied, sex-crazed frenzy over a mic-stand swathed in bandannas. The break down in the middle of "Lose the Cape" punishes the listener with a syncopated snarling reminiscent of early Metallica. And "$3 Relapse" starts with the raucous backwoods swing of a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune and rolls into a note-bending, stop-start groove akin to Zeppelin's "All My Love". "Nightfool" will have you nodding your head and rolling the windows of your El Camino down as you cruise the strip.
Tight Phantomz wear their influences on their sleeve. That may be the major factor preventing them from big league success (If you're going to blatantly sound like a band from the past and make it big you have to be really really really good, ie The Darkness who are Queen), but hey, these guys don't seem too worried about anything much but rocking. Long live leather pants.
2.5/4
