Friday, August 09, 2013

Gunslingers' "Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors" EP

Wow. I wrote these guys off when alpine-hatted frontman/guitarist Gregory Raimo released his second solo album earlier this year. Look how wrong you can be. Now they're back with a two-song, 16-minute EP, recorded the old-fashioned way, in a single take on four-track analog tape, and released in an edition of 500 on one-sided white vinyl. If you're looking for the distilled essence of rockaroll, you could do much worse than spinning this platter.

The Gunslingers' No More Invention arrived like a Candygram from the gods in 2008, massively hyped by Julian Cope but justifying his extravagant praise with a level of manic intensity that was only surpassed by the fury of their live performance in a dive bar in our humble city. So impressed were we by Raimo's ability to coax a howling feedback apocalypse out of a borrowed amp that soon, and without discussion, Richard Hurley and I started spiking our guitar necks into the tops of our rigs in emulation of GR whenever we wanted to conjure Stoogeaphilia's trademark shitstorm of noise -- imitation being, of course, the sincerest form of flattery. Offstage, GR and his bandmates Matthieu Canaguier (bass) and Antoine Hadjioannou (drums) were the nicest cats you could imagine, but onstage, they were...kind of frightening. In a good way.

Like an Isley Brothers single, "Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors" is divided into "Part I" and "Part II," even though both parts are pressed on the same side of the record. GR still spews indecipherable gibberish non-stop in a voice laced with flat menace, while splintering shards of guitar damage like some unholy amalgam of Link Wray and Sonny Sharrock. The riddim boyz back him to the hilt in a manner that leaves subtlety and finesse at the door and dispenses a pummeling that'll bruise you. Keep this disc around for those times when you need the catharsis that only an amped-up exorcism can provide.

Cop via Lesdisques Blasphematoires Du Palatin.

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