Reviving the garage rock revivalists
Garage rock has turned out to be a gift that keeps on giving. The original mid-60s singles movement was recognized in the writings of Lester Bangs and Greg Shaw, and memorialized in 1972 on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets. The sounds continued to echo ever more scratchily in the follow-on avalanche of Pebbles, Boulders, Back From the Grave, Girls in the Garage and their myriad peers, and the ethos took root among the DIY punk movement of the late-70s. By the early 1980s, a full-blown revival was underway, and over the succeeding decades, the sound has morphed and been reborn around the world.
Enter Zurich’s Royal Hangmen, who released their first demos in 2006, the single “Mary Jane†in 2009 and their self-titled debut LP in 2012. Their latest 4-song EP salutes the first wave of garage revivalists, including covers of the Chesterfield Kings (“She Told Me Liesâ€), Wylde Mammoths (“Help That Girlâ€), Miracle Workers (“I’ll Walk Awayâ€) and Cynics (“Yeah!â€). Just as the first-wave revivalists stocked their sets with covers of obscure singles from the 1960s, the Hangmen have selected their material with a connoisseur’s ear for the revivalists’ originals, and recreated the same sort of sweaty reverence these sides deserve. There are some great memories here, given a fresh shot of fuzz by the Royal Hangmen. [©2015 Hyperbolium] 