Viva L'American Death Ray Music
A New Commotion A Delicate Tension (And The Exquisite Corpse of Mr. Jimmy)

THE REVIEW

An intro and four songs per side that fly by in just over half an hour. Like those records they used to make. Where you find guitar lashes full of abrasive energy and fast rhythms, fueled with swirling shocks with a 'bluesy' and somewhat garage aftertaste. The grace of an indie band that knows how to combine with refined taste that somewhat dark romanticism of certain rock with the dirty, immediate, and lascivious delivery of garage.
Like a terrifying combo between Velvet Underground and Modern Lovers: that is, a very simple rock'n'roll, clinging to four chords played with strokes from a frenetic and sweaty hand, eyes closed and a heart as big as this.

Here you have the American Death Ray, people who can afford to talk about themselves in the third person. Why? Very simple. "The New Age" and "Sycophant" open the record with an immediate one-two knockout: pure Lou Reed stripped from the angriest things of Velvet Underground and sent at 45 RPM, the rough and "detached" voice, a metronome-like drum perfectly wedged between guitars traveling at a thousand per hour. And avalanching "Blue Cars", a powerful guitar shoegaze that fuses rhythm'n'blues with the propulsion of low frequencies pushed to the limits of funk. "New Commotion" is a raucous riff-fest, fast and sparse, that pulverizes in two minutes and forty-one seconds all the pretentious aspirations of fashionistas like the Strokes (also explaining why the market goes one way and rock'n'roll another).

Sit down, have a drink because you can't stand up, you look pale.

"Push And Pull" is still a velvet pearl; a bastard offspring where you can recognize all the marks left by a record like "Loaded" on today's indie-rock; "What The Girls Say", a soul stomp all played with danceable and tribal rhythms on the toms of the drum, to bring together in the same room the Stooges with the Gun Club.
"Oh! Libertine!" arrives like an exclamation of epidermic joy (yes, the curse aimed at those who really haven't understood a damn thing!) that tests the efficacy (the efficacy!) of your stereo speakers.

And to hell with the Strokes, the Libertines, and anyone else like them. To hell with all those who promptly swallow the "next big thing" trumpeted by specialized magazines.
To hell with those unable to look even just beyond the palm of their own nose and who settle for whatever the convent is passing. To hell especially with those who can't distinguish between music crafted on a drawing board like a product to cover a brand, a target, a damn "genre" or a fashion, from those who, instead, work in the shadows like a good craftsman constitutionally incapable of bending to market logic.

Screw you all. The American Death Ray eat you for breakfast.