OK, so I don't do a lot of record reviews in here ... dunno why, really, as I always have something spinning in the CD player on my desk ... I guess that most of the time I just don't have anything germane to say about a particular disc. However, from time to time I end up with something that really grabs me, and I want to point it out ... and this is one of those occasions.As I mentioned a week or so back, I'd indulged myself in a minor eBay "buying spree", scoring 10 one-cent CDs from the remarkable JayAndMarie. Obviously, being the Cheap Bastard that I am naturally (and being in rather dire financial straits at the moment), there is a lot of appeal in being able to get a whole bunch of new music for less than the retail cost of a single CD! The down-side, of course, to this music acquisition strategy is that I end up with a lot of discs by bands who, while good enough to have gotten a recording contract, never quite got commercial traction with an "almost there" effort. However, from time to time I hit something which borders on greatness, and this one is close enough to that for me to want to write about it.
The Wildhearts' The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed is a very well crafted rock & roll record. It's not trendy, but it has almost no low points. On about my fifth listen, though, it struck me ... their songs are quite reminiscent to the structure and melody styles of Bob Mould (which is high praise from me). Now, this is not to say that The Wildhearts sound like Bob Mould (especially not in his Black Sheets of Rain period), but there is something there which makes me think they're mining the same creative seam when doing all-out driving rock tunes.
Frankly, I'm surprised that I hadn't heard of these guys before, as their website shows a rather extensive discography ... judging from which it would appear that they are "big in Japan", as well as their native U.K. Also, on this latter point, I would have guessed the band being from New Jersey or L.A. or something, there's no blatant "Britishism" to the album at all, which could be why they've never made it onto my radar.
Anyway, The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed is a super record, and one that I wouldn't have felt bad about paying retail (!!!) for ... so you may want to check it out.
