Rein Sanction
Broc's Cabin

After Buffalo Tom, today I tell you about another trio from the good old days, in my humble opinion underrated just like the guys from Boston. Rein Sanction also formed in Jacksonville, Florida, at the end of the '80s. The two Gentry brothers, Mark on guitar and Brannon on drums, with the help of their friend Ian Chase on bass, after a first self-produced album with limited distribution, debuted on Sub Pop with this "Broc's Cabin" in 1991.

However, beware, this is not the usual sound of the Seattle label of the time, made up of fuzz and lo-fi guitar walls, typical of Jack Endino's recordings, that these, then, twenty-somethings give us. Already the production by Mark Kramer, more commonly known simply as Kramer, founder of Shimmy-Disc, creator of various quirky projects such as Shockabilly and Bongwater and a member for a short period of the Butthole Surfers, should give you some indication.

We are indeed in the realm of psychedelia tinged with punk ferocity, but at times also with folk latencies. The scene is dominated by a fierce guitar, with Hendrixian reminiscences (and indeed, in the following "Mariposa", there will be a cover of "Ain't No Telling"), almost always played on notes and not chords, often spiced with a varied wah-wah. The tracks are all quite short, around three minutes long, with slow-down breaks. Vocals at the same volume level as the other instruments, rhythm section not particularly innovative, but that at times recalls the early Minutemen.

The cover seems to me to well depict the sound of the band, which is somewhat blurred and deconstructed, a landscape seen from afar. But precisely this lack of a center of gravity also represents to my eyes the greatest charm of Rein Sanction: it has often happened to me that I replay the album from the start as soon as it ends. Listening to them again now, it seems to me that there is always something that eludes me in the flow of their visions.

A notable mention finally for "Sideways Down", which has a chord progression that I love, but that, like the other songs on the album, ends before being concluded, a strange drift of talents that have not entered history but surely deserved more attention than they received.

Four stars to be intended as seven out of ten.