Fidlar

Ah, now this is fucking immense.

LA troupe Fidlar make really wickedly scuzzy, oldskool, surfy garage rock and roll. This has been done many a time, in disappointingly neutered fashion, by a veritable parade of would-be no-goods. This here, this is better. Much better. You do not get the impression these miscreants would fill onstage bottles of Jack with iced tea. They're self-denigrating and cut-throat, obnoxious but legitimately fucking fun. At their least interesting they sound like the Death Set, but elsewhere it's harder and faster and uglier.

They've been touring with the Hives and Jeff the Brotherhood, if that gives you an inkling to the kind of fun you're about to encounter. But unlike the Hives' cartoon punk or JTB's WOO! RIFFS! outlook, Fidlar's songs come with a bitter, serrated edge. Don't expect Proust - "I - DRINK - CHEAP - BEER - SO - WHAT - FUCK - YOU" is a sample of the wordsmithery employed by these dudes. But "White on White", above, is a compellingly nihilistic middle finger to the joy of being army drafted - the fast-and-fuck-you Stooges yell is the first thing you'll notice, but it gets a lot darker once you take in the words - a succinct account of a society drop-out being shoved overseas and out of the way to 'serve' his country.