High Tension Wires - Midnight Cashier LP/CD

acoustic PUNK from past and present members of the Obsevers and Clorox Girls.

About half new material and half radical re-workings of old Observers and Speds songs, this still has all the power, hooks, and lyrical insight of band member's previous incarnations, presented in a drastically different format that'll nonetheless appeal to musicially open minded punk types everywhere!

1st 150 LPs are on blue vinyl and available mailorder only!

REVIEWS:

AVERSION.COM Punk rock was never meant to be solely a vehicle for angry would-be revolutionaries who brandish guitars and overworked half-stacks like armaments. That was a part of it, but, really, it was just a simple return to grassroots songwriting. It was, theoretically, a place where Elvis Costello's acerbic pop, Eddie and the Hot Rods' trumped-up R&B and Television's art-school intellect could all work together to let the hot air out of a bloated, self-righteous music industry.

More than 30 years later, that ideal's been lost to antiquity, buried under a mudslide of safety pins, studded leather and mis-remembered, over-simplified recollections of punk's glory days. For a few brief moments, nothing seemed out of reach, then stereotypes, cliches and expectations went and fouled everything up.

If there's a band that delivers a crystal-clear reminder of how much punk's spirit could have really accomplished if it wasn't shoehorned into a cliche, it's The Revisions. Approaching its music in that rushed-to-distraction fashion that milked greatness out of rugged albums by everyone from The Germs and The Sex Pistols to The Clorox Girls and The Briefs, The Revisions pick up a love for pop that can't be contained by conventional definitions of punk. At the same time, the sharp bass tones, airy natural-room reverb and clattering melodies on Revised Observations are obviously a byproduct of more conventional punk sounds.

That strands The Revisions somewhere between acoustic-punk rabble-rousers and cutting-edge pop champions. And if that sounds like an awkward place to be, it's only because you haven't heard The Revisions make a pop paradise out of that no man's land. The act's pop-punk roots have the most obvious influence on its sound, with tracks like "On the Lam" and "Where I Stay" taking high-octane melodies through their workout, sans buzzing amplification. The Revisions are more than just another entry into the folk-punk world, though, as Revised Observations catches the trio veering away from punk simplicity for subtle sophistication. "No More Wars" wraps up a punk-like tale of religious disillusionment in a sparse string arrangement that could be en elegy for coy chamber pop. "Lead Pill" doesn't rely on white-spark energy so much as a whole lot of soul, as Douglas Burns leads the band through a number where piano and acoustic strumming share the spotlight. "Vagabond" could be a searing spy-punk number, with its Peter-Gunn like bass line, though the unplugged atmosphere gives it a whole new context.

Revised Observations is the sort of album we'd be getting left and right if the future punk's founding fathers envisioned ever took hold. A future where Elvis Costello was king of pop, where heartfelt songwriting was all it took to impress the world and, most importantly, where bands could do anything they wanted free of expectations. Instead we're stuck with a strangling genre full of scene police and look-alikes. Thank God there's still a few bands like The Revisions still able to live out the dream.

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