Dirty Bomb

Back in 2003, a lonely college student sat on his bed, streaming Little Steven's Underground Garage--and sketched. Scribbling whatever the music inspired him to draw, he filled notebooks with doodles of broken hearts, beetle bugs, big droopy sun flowers...then The Star Spangles came on. Their first single, "Which One of the Two of Us is Gonna Burn This House Down?" erupted from his cheap plastic Dell speakers. That college student was me--and I had no idea what I was supposed to draw for that song. Needless to say, The Star Spangles killed my game.

I downloaded the full album, BAZOOKA! from the iTUNES store. It was fantastic! But the band lived in the shadow of the more famous New York band, The Strokes. Then the garage rock revival ended as quickly as it had started. Despite being an amazing band (I've yet to meet a person who's heard it and not liked it), they were dropped from Capitol Records (fuckers). Adrift and alone in the world, lead singer Ian Wilson bragged that the band would be back. They had over a thousand songs written...you know, the usual nonsense. But then drummer and bass player quit, and I never expected to hear from them again.

Flash forward to late April/early May and on the Rock and Roll Geek Show Indie cast Jasper (from the Plan 9 Rock Show) mentioned that the band had a new record coming out. I was stoked. I ordered it (this time from independent CD seller CDbaby rather than iTUNES). I got it, listened to it while I fixed dinner for my family...and was underwhelmed.

BAZOOKA! was such a brilliant, instant-karma kind of record that I was disappointed by DIRTY BOMB. And then a few weeks went by, and I put it on...and it sounded better than I remembered. A month later I'm a true-believer. Despite all the shit the band's been through, DIRTY BOMB delivers.

While staying true to their punk/garage roots, The Spangles seem pop-ier this time around. "I'm on a High" and "This Side of the Sun" would easily fit on any of the pop stations playing Rooney or The Plain White T's. The sonic boom of "Which One of Us..." is felt (though to a lesser degree) on the opener "Take Care of Us" and "Tell Lies." It's a good thing.

One of my favorite songs from BAZOOKA! was the Rolling Stones-influenced "Crime of the Century," here on DIRTY BOMB they pay homage to the Stones with "'nother Weight to Hold Me Down." This may seem like a small detail, but it really impressed me on the first record...and I was wondering if they'd do it again. I know there are only so many riffs a guitarist can play, but the fat Keef-riffs really makes me smile.

The lyrics again are nice and dark (instead of burning down houses, the Spangles now have a song called "Bash Your Brains Out"). I would have liked to see a little more variety in the songs. Everything is basically in the same tempo (fast or really fast). I really enjoyed the slower (dare I say country?) end track "Someone in You" and wish they'd done a little more experimentation. The first album was actually quite varied in this regard. But that's a complaint not against this record so much as it is against the genre in general. The Star Spangles play their garage rock role well.

Overall The Star Spangles have come out of a trying period intact. I hope they get picked up by another major label. These boys need another shot.

Jason gives DIRTY BOMB an "A-"

And check out BAZOOKA! (which Jason gives an "A+"):