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2 out of 10
This is an album of anthemic desperation. For a band who apparently 'don't care for mainstream rock', Two Cow Garage seems to love raiding the Hard Rock dressing-up box, constantly dying to get on a big stage somewhere and riff away with one foot on the monitor. From the shredded sha-la-las of Come Back to Shelby, through the undead pub-rock of The Great Gravitron Massacre, to the rawk-squall of Camo Jacket, this is music for people who consider Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams to be a pair of trite fops, or the Black Crowes and the Wildhearts to be far too effete and complicated.
It's very environmentally friendly, with recycled riff after recycled riff bludgeoning its way out of the speakers. Vocalist Micah Schnabel howls through broken glass before letting rip every now and then with what sounds like prolonged vomiting. This reaches its nadir (Or zenith, depending on how you like your vocal cords) in Camaro, Schnabel's tale of a lad who sneaks his girl out for a drive to the local lake for a fumble - 'we can talk until it feels right - if my hands can wait that long'. Thunder Road it is not. The truly horrific shriek near the end is neatly juxtaposed with a car radio playing Daltrey's spine-tingler from Won't Get Fooled Again. Despite his evident good influences, if Schnabel wants to be Daltrey, he's clearly failing.
But maybe that's the point. The over-riding theme of the album is one of almost pride in being aimless and a failure. 'There ain't no shame in just giving up' from No Shame, for example, where Schnabel gamely leaps after quite a few notes and misses nearly all of them. There is also a quite aggressive tone of regret in every song - even about being in a band. In what could be called 'the stand-out track', Should've California the band approach the Tragically Hip in this regard - in addition to what may be the first use of a state's name as a verb. They don't reach the 'Hip but at least they get above the ankle and the singing is bearable.
Mediocre also needs a mention, for having a passable vocal impersonation of Mark Lanegan and a brass section, for some reason. The band can't be faulted for commitment and the album is well produced, on the whole (Epitaph's Jet-B-side-recorded-in-a-bucket notwithstanding). However, the hymns to pointlessness wear as thin as the lazy comparisons to Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr. Interestingly, for a band 'discovered' by a lawyer, they sing of 'less is more' (In Now I Know). With this album, sadly, that's not the case.
Listen: www.myspace.com/twocargarage
Tracklist:
1. Come Back to Shelby
2. Epitaph
3. No Shame
4. The Great Gravitron Massacre
5. Now I Know
6. Should've California
7. Camo Jacket
8. Mediocre
9. Camaro
10. Gape & Shudder
11. Blanket Gray
12. Arson
13. Postcards and Apologies
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