REVIEW: THE MONOCLES - OUT OF YOUR MIND 7"

You know when ever people write about garage rock, they always talk about it in waves. Need proof? Keep reading. First there's that whole golden era back in the 60s. Then there's the wave in the 70s. Then one in the 80s. Then one in the 90s. Then the one from a few years ago that made lots of people with the definitive article in the front of a noun lots of money. Is this it? Or rather, if there's always a garage wave, how do we know exactly when one ended and the next began? I guess they're like ocean waves that way, they just kinda keep coming and while you know where the crest and the gully is, you can't really create some sort of neat and tidy real-world demarcation to say where one begins and the other ends. There are no lines in the sand, only foam rushing from place to place.

If we could drop our bobber in the endless ebb and flow at a certain point, we'd prolly pick Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff + Early Singles as the first time garage rock caught our attention and stuck around like swimmer's ear. There's a great quote about this period of the band, which we will summarize from memory as follows: "You've got songs about dogs. You've got songs about being sick. You've can play five chords, but you only use three in each song." We feel like this boils down our affinity for garage music rather eloquently: In other words, it's simple music, played far heavier than its subject matter. But with Mudhoney, there was always that lyrical and compositional darkness that set it apart from other rockers of the lube joint. (Indeed, that feint towards the shadows and geographic locality alone may be the reason why the band ended up with the Grunge label more than the music itself - I mean, do they really have all that much in common with Pearl Jam?) "Touch me I'm Sick" is really a pretty unpleasant song, certainly in no danger of veering off into into Frat or Party rock. And it's this same dissonance and distance from celebration that we think is part of why we enjoy this 7" from The Monocles.

Recorded at Pigeon Eater Studios here in town, the title track quickly sets up what to expect. What you notice immediately is how the vocals are wrapped in a layer of effects, separating you, almost disconcertingly, from the lyrics and the performer. With a Born Liars song, for example, you might picture yourself up on stage dancing among them, but here the vocals and the way the guitars drag the drums along, you can be forgiven for thinking that no, there's something a bit more weighty going on here - maybe it's best if take it in rather than trying to somehow incorporate my own private celebration into the performance.

Tonight follows suit, tapping into the same set of inappropriately workhouse pop chords that bring to mind Butch Vig-era Sonic Youth, though with decidedly more straight-ahead structures. The lyrics are about confusion and displacement, and the music backs it up. "Darken Your Door" gets back to our original premise, and why we've enjoyed this release so much. It's a simple song (and note, please, that simple is not a bad thing AT ALL) with a catchy riff about something as mundane as a "rip in the couch." But though it couldn't be sillier if it was a lament about a car with a thousand clowns in it, there's something more, something unfortunate and not joyous about what we're hearing. We can't quite put our finger on it, but we know for sure that we, too, don't want anything to do with that rip, even while the song about it is rocking us. Recommended.

Stream: The Monocles - Various Tracks