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Sunday 7 October 2012

Record Review - Apache Dropout


APACHE DROPOUT
Bubblegum Graveyard

Apache Dropout’s MO is simple: ’60s-style garage/psych with a few post-punk/new wave influences thrown in. There’s a pleasing tongue-in-cheek weirdness about it all, in the vocal inflections, the freakshow lyrics and the EC comics pastiche cover, with its bubblegum-blowing, scythe-weilding, graveyard-dwelling ghoul.

'Carryin’ Fleas' is all scuzzy, psychedelic fuzz guitar and Cramps-style monotone rumble. The playing is appropriately rudimentary throughout, particularly in the primordial thump of the Mo Tucker-esque drumming. 'Kitty Verlaine' has a truly unhinged, double-tracked guitar solo, where notes stretch and contort, hanging in the air like ectoplasmic trails. 'Hey Valentine', meanwhile, is ’60s coffee house folk drenched in layers of aqueous guitar.

They wear their influences proudly on their collective sleeve – VU, Ramones, Cramps – though 'I-80' has the kind of yelping, raunch ’n’ roll, Jerry Lee-style craziness which harks back to a more primitive era. This is not exactly reinventing the wheel, but it’s huge fun nonetheless.

Neil Hussey

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