Dead Rider
Crew Licks

THE REVIEW

This is a truly beautiful and interesting disc by Dead Rider, a band from the Drag City roster led by guitarist Todd Rittman (former U.S. Maple) and completed by Matthew Espy (drums), Andrea Faugh (trumpet, keyboards), Thymme Jones (synth, winds, drums).

Treading the line between avant-garde and tradition, Rittman's band released its fourth album last September 22: a dual-faced work that the editors of the Chicago, USA label themselves have described as a 'monster' or rather - a 'damned and cursed chimera' pulsating with life, where the ideas of brutality and beauty meet. An album not necessarily innovative but where a significant portion of contemporary US alternative music is definitely challenged.

'Crew Licks' is indeed an album where different sounds mix, referring to diverse genres and crossing over into avant-garde art-rock sounds derived from the no-wave and always relevant in a certain determined USA underground scene and that acid blues sound from the sixties-seventies by Blue Cheer or MC5. Only this sound is presented in a more or less evident manner sometimes, for example, in the opening track, 'Grand Mal Blues', where the rudimentary Gallon Drunk or Nick Cave blues sound dominates over droning reverberations, or in the T. Rex or David Bowie-style glam-rock of 'The Listing Rock', the acid, noisy, sound-focused blues centered on the bass power of 'Too Cruise'; on other occasions, it is literally remixed into scratching and dub sounds with almost neo-soul music suggestions like James Blake in 'Ramble On Rose' or within the avant-garde schizophrenia of The Residents and Pere Ubu like '(Title Redacted)', and dub-step Radiohead howls mixed with Fugazi-brand compositions and songwriting ('Bad Humours').

Based on the modulation of a certain industrial sound, noticeable in the futuristic reinterpretation of delta blues of 'The Ideal' or in the noise acidity of 'The Floating Dagger', the spirit of this two-headed demon conceived by Todd Rittman and his companions finds its ultimate materialization in the concluding 'When I Was Frankenstein's', a sound nightmare mixing acid and Mars Volta guitarisms with Les Rallizes DeNudes' experimental pushes or White Heaven's progressive-rock.

An album that goes down smoothly, despite the apparent complexity, with the ease of a sip of Froben syrup and thus reveals itself as both analgesic and invigorating. That is, it's good for your health. Especially the health of your ears.