FIREBALLS OF FREEDOM – Greasy Retrospective (Wäntage USA)
Posted: March 11th, 2005, by Simon MinterI keep writing about Wäntage USA releases on here, don’t I? But they keep releasing great things. What am I to do? (Well, admittedly, widen my listening spectrum a little bit. And I will. I will.)
Anyway. Fireballs of Freedom rock like crazed fuckers! This CD is invigoratingly fast-paced, and dumb-ass simplistic. For the duration of listening to the album, I’m convinced that you can keep your complex mathematical rock, your inward-looking folkesque strummings and your skittering electronica experiment. The people want WAILING, my dudes. And this band wails with the best of ’em.
They’re one third Kiss showmanship, one third Ramones chugachug rockaway freneticism, one third Mudhoney late-80s style grunge and one third Superchunk melodical lyricism. They’re dumb-ass rock enough to care not that that adds up to more than a whole. And that is the way you should like it. And will like it. Fat chunks of raw bleeding meat guitar chords, cross-song widdling solos and brief bangbangbang structures. A band for the early 1980s mid-American flannel shirt-wearing slackers amongst us.
Fireballs of Freedom
Wäntage USA
Simon Minter
Simon joined diskant after falling on his head from a great height. A diskant legend in his own lifetime Simon has risen up the ranks through a mixture of foolhardiness and wit. When not breaking musical barriers with top pop combo Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element or releasing records in preposterously exciting packaging he relaxes by looking like Steve Albini.
http://www.nineteenpoint.com