Onze laatste liverecensie.
Onze laatste albumrecensie.
Ons laatste interview.
Onze laatste video.
This is where I could say Jon Spencer has lost it. And that Plastic Fang is exactly the right title for this bite-lacking album. And, of course, I could whine for paragraphs about how the Blues Explosion are a bunch of rich, middle-class, middle-aged white guys who don't understand the dark essence of rock'n'roll - the madness of Jerry Lee Lewis, the nihilism of the Stooges, the angst of Nirvana. Let alone that they would know anything about the blues!
But if you want to read that, you'd better surf to Pitchfork (speaking of people who don't understand rock'n'roll...), because I won't do it. To me, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are - cheesy as it may sound - instant happiness. And if they are artificial instant happiness, not the real thing, that only puts JSBX in a long line of other products that create artificial instant happiness. Only this type of artificial instant happiness is legal, even though it's just as addictive as the illegal ones.
So, whenever I feel a little down, all I have to is put on JSBX's classic Orange. And, after a few bars of the syncopated riffage of that album's opening track Bellbottoms, I'm behaving like a South Korean football fan after their team's victory over Portugal. Plastic Fang almost has the same effect.
Almost, because what is missing is the experimentation of earlier albums. Plastic Fang is the Blues Explosion's most straightforward rocking and therefore most accessible album so far. And the way in which it rocks straightforwardly is of the extremely high quality we've come to expect from this band. Of course, the move towards a more conventional sound was already becoming apparent on Acme (-Plus). Another trend that continues from those albums is that Spencer actually sings lyrics instead of shouting slogans. Don't expect deep stuff though: Most of it is centred around a Hammeresque werewolf theme.
But hey: Hasn't happiness always been a shallow thing? And not only shallow, but also elusive. That is, until the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion made it available on handy silver and black discs.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/jon-spencer-blues-explosion/plastic-fang/1630/
Meer The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/jon-spencer-blues-explosion
Deel dit artikel: