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Failure to deliver - predictions
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Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

Quick review #1: The Distillers
Feb 03, 2004, 00:32
Just listened to "Sick of it All", "City of Angels" and "Girlfixer" by The Distillers, annointed as "the Next Big Thing" in the current issue of SPIN. These songs were chosen because they were the most popular on WinMX when I checked a few minutes ago.

The Distillers are a four-piece band: guitar-bass-drums + singer (who happens to be a girl.)

Let's start with the music: it is totally generic "Rock", generally played fast which I guess is what qualifies it as "Punk." A little Motorhead, a lot of 2nd-tier 80's LA hairmetal (i.e. LA Guns, not Guns & Roses.) Though of course (as another article on The Darkness in this same SPIN issue puts it) Americans have no use for irony, so these guys have shortish multicolored "punk" hair cuz (that's what's cool in high school these days, those kids buy the records) Long feathered poodle hair would probably fit better, but that would be "ironic" in the current marketing context, therefore they look like every other tatooed California "Punk" Band of today.

The singer: sounds kinda like Joan Jett, or really more like P!nk in her more growly "Rock" moments.

The songs: "Girlfixer" is about a minute long and really fast, "thrash punk," only too cleanly produced for that genre. "Sick of it All" is Joan Jettish. "City of Angels" is just what the world needs, another useless tribute to fucking Los Angeles! It is more "bluesy" or something. In other words, they all sound like slick generic hard rock.

The cover: The Distillers sounded exactly like what I expected them to. How did I know this? Am I a genius or a psychic? No, because it's all right there in the marketing. They sound exactly like what they look like they will sound like. Major label hard rock from LA, 2004 model.

The Unsung Competition: The BellRays (from hicksville, California -- Riverside maybe?), The Paybacks (Detroit) and the Detroit Cobras (guess where from?) all do "punk/metal RAWK with a growly female singer" much much MUCH better. Because they are RAW and REAL -- these bands produce their own records real cheap and rely on gutsy off-the-rail performances and better songwriting -- rather than the photogenics of the SKANK with all the tatoos and piercings whose on all the magazine covers.

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