We raved about their eclectic mini album a year ago, and now Secret Machines?the Curtis brothers plus drummer Josh Garza, relocated from Dallas to New York?have honed their tight, tingly sound to produce a more direct yet equally powerful rock beast. In short, it’s like John Bonham playing with Can, or Floyd-meet-Spiritualized with a barely repressed pop consciousness.
Awkwardly funky, they’re not averse to nine-minute epics (the suspenseful opener “First Wave Intact”, or the closing title track) but manage to fuse garage meatiness with stadium-spraying scale. It’s all about the riffs, which insistently seduce and bully you until you’re leaping around your living room like a Kiss fan with a brain. Potent postmodern blues.
Advertisement