The Monkeywrench
Electric Children

And who the heck are these The Monkeywrench you might be asking, debaserite companions; I take inspiration from the definition given to the band by gnagnera: "punk, grunge, psychedelia, garage, blues, Tim Kerr, Mark Arm, Steve Turner, now that's a rock'n'roll band with cojones!" A supergroup formed in Seattle in the early nineties, arriving with this work at their second album; an album I gifted myself, I remember it very well, in Christmas 2000; it seems right to talk about them on this Christmas morning.

Compared to their debut a few years earlier, there's an even greater frenzy, a rawness at the core thanks in particular to the spot-on production of Jack Endino (Nirvana, TAD, Screaming Trees, L7 just to name a few!). Mark Arm and Steve Turner are the two founders of that dirty war machine called Mudhoney; and that's where the sound of The Monkeywrench originates, with Mark's unmistakable voice so effective in stretching the final syllables of the sung verses. A voice not very graceful but ideal to support the noisy music of his companions.

They travel like surface-to-air missiles launched at supersonic speed in almost all the songs on the album; take a track like "Bring On The Judgement Day" with that crazy harmonica that makes the overflowing river of its four-minute duration even more "lively." Psycho-Garage minutes with the sound of noisy, jagged guitars cutting through the air. The pounding of "Solar Revelations" (wisely placed by our heroes to open the work) that in its brief course reminds me, from the very first notes, of the Bostonian elves intersecting with the most reckless Gun Club.

It's the total delirium of over eight minutes (!!) of "In The Days Of The Five" that confirms to me that we are facing a formidable, little-known band which I highly recommend to you. A track that seems never-ending, maintaining a not too rapid pace and annihilating you with that finale where the screeching guitars are mistreated, violated, destroyed.

If only there were more albums like this!!

Ad Maiora.