I actually read a press release!
I read it from beginning to end and everything.
What I found out is that Los Tromos are a Greek band influenced by The Ramones and 50’s B-Movies.
This all sounded promising and, after appreciating the lovely packaging – Gatefold card slipcase about an inch bigger than it should be. Almost 7″ single size in fact – I put the CD into the machine.
Immediately I heard something that unsettled me.
Let me try and explain.
I spent a while living in Italy and visited various places around Europe duting my time there. What I found was far too many people being overly ‘serious’ about music.
You know, a kind of mindset that says you can’t be in a band unless you can play guitar solos at 300 MPH and reading from a score.
The songs on this album are actually neat little punker riffs with the odd garage-surf number thrown in. Unfortunately they suffer from being far far far too precise.
Too musicianly.
Inserting a note perfect guitar solo into a 2 minute, 3 chord workout just kills the essence of the music the band are making.
Sadly it reminds me of this anecdote from my time in Italy:
A friend came over for dinner and I played him a bunch of records.
He was particularly taken by a Jim O’Rourke album.
A couple weeks later I was at his place for a meal when he said, “I just have to play you something. You’ll LOVE it!”.
While he went to find the CD I got excited thinking I might be about to discover some Italian underground genius.
He returned from his bedroom and put the CD on.
It was Led Zeppelin 4.

Posted: 10|5|05 at 5:08 pm. Filed under: record reviews.
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