Impediments - s/t
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Impediments – s/t (Happy Parts Recordings)
Audio clip
"You Want A Square" by the Impediments
Writing about a band like the Impediments invites all the anti-rock criticism clichés. You know, the “Dancing About Architecture” stuff. Indeed, the Impediments direct, charged rock'n’roll is so straight up as to appear to defy critical exegesis. But screw that, this is why the KC Free Press pays me the big bucks! You’re gonna get an Impediments review; and you’re gonna like it.
Google search these snotty little freaks and you might get directed to the Web site of some dorktastic, frat boy band from Colorado. Or, get this — a good ol’ boy Country band from Florida. Kids! Listen! Your band name is important. It’s your debut record’s name. It’s your brand. Don’t let these other losers steal your identity. I’m sure there are punk-rock attorneys in Berkeley freakin’ California.
The Impediments play punk rock old school style, punk rock that doesn’t play by any latter day rules about punk — the sort of codified angst practiced by everyone from Black Flag to Seven Seconds that slowly, but surely drained the life out of the music. They’re punk rock the way, and to the extent that, the Replacements were. In other words, they take classic rock reference points and bend and shape them to their own purposes with equal degrees of reverence and disdain, not unlike predecessors and inspiration like the New York Dolls and the Dead Boys.
Nick Allen and Mike Liebman toss off James Williamson and Ross the Boss (Dictators) licks while Allen slurs derisively in his Iggy via Stiv Bators voice — full of late adolescent fervor and its discontents (uh, girls and stuff). The album kicks off with Allen’s profession of desire to have carnal knowledge of Le Ann Rimes and concludes with the equally refined fantasy of “Vagina Envy.” It’s not all sex for these fellows, though. ‘Pig Out” is about …. c’mon try … that’s right …food. And “Junk’ is, well it’s not about having too much clutter in your room. The protestation of “You Want a Square” disses some lame chick and posits the boys’ hipster identity, completing the band’s sex, drugs and rock n’roll trifecta.
Greg Ashley, the man behind garage-psychers Gris Gris, is no stranger to fuzzy, punked-out garage rock. He co-produces Impediments, shaping the band’s full throttle mania into something powerful, focusing the band’s performances, but leaving enough raw edges to keep things nasty.
Reverberating: 8.0
Steve Wilson is the manager of Kief's Downtown Music and a lifelong musician and music writer. His weekly bundle of music reviews, Reverberations, will be appearing in KCFreePress each Tuesday.
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