Doom Ghost's "Demos"

Who are those guys?
- Butch Cassidy

The Italian kid sent me the link, along with the recommendation, "very old-school, non-gratuitously retro and full of life." He weren't just whistling.

First track, "Wink Wink," invokes the spirit of Roky Erickson via its "You're Gonna Miss Me"-ish chorded intro before the singer proffers the invitation, "Let's go steal a van and drive away" like a punk Broooce Springsteen and laments that "the sky is always so fickle with her rain," neatly encapsulating teen anomie in just 2:12.

"The Antideluvian Misadventures of Doom Ghost and Wizard Cat" sounds for all the world like Joe Strummer fronting the Standells, howling the best Foat Wuth-referential ditty since Pablo & the Hemphill 7's "Little Man and Chiva Joe." (Sample lyric: "Live in the shadow of Cowtown ... And yesterday was a touch poetic / But now I'm stuck with a car full of jaded assholes.") The protagonist and his crew cruise for cheap beer, survive an attempted mugging, and drive off into the night exulting, "Blood looks black in the moonlight ... It ain't my blood, it ain't your blood, it ain't our blood."

"No Tagbacks" has the live-in-the-garage sound of the Nomads' Stagger In the Snow cassette from 30 years ago, and like Solna, Sweden's bid for the greatest rock 'n' roll band on Earth, these Funkytown brats sound like they swallowed the entahr history of the Rawk (well, the cool parts anyway) whole and are now belching it back up infused with their own spin and poisoned spirit.

Not everything here operates on such an exalted level, but every tune contains at least one classic riff and killer lyric -- the four-flusher's boast "I never learned to listen / I never learned to run" on the minor key slow drag "Goddamn I Hate the Blues;" the tossed-off line "Too much love is worse than nothing at all" on the surf-or-"Secret Agent Man" simulacrum "Grace of God" -- until "There Is No Score" takes it out with a grinding Velvet Underground-ish riff and indecipherable vocals that make it sound like a Back From the Grave leftover.

Now I've gotta hear these guys live.

ADDENDUM: Like a candygram from the gods (or Santy Claus), they're playing at Lola's Friday night with War Party and Bits of Kids. Hooray!