The Fuzz--- Best Kept Secret

Ever drive and have a great song come on the radio or maybe have a CD in the player and you all of a sudden notice you're driving 20 miles over the speed limit? Happened to me tonight and I'm surprised I wasn't pulled over. What could I do if I was? Crank The Fuzz's new album up louder and let the music plead my case? I could have done it, especially if Loaded was the track playing when I rolled down the window. Or Wilt. Hey, officer, I lost it for a minute because of this rockin' tribute to Wilt Chamberlain's sex life. Here, let me turn it up for you. “He shoots, he scores.” Get it? What's that? Get out of the car and put my hands on the hood? Are you listening to this, man?

It would have been worth a ride to the police station, sports fans. The album started out normal but the more I heard it, the more I had to turn it up. By the time it got to Track 8, the aforementioned Loaded, I might as well have been. Loaded, that is. I was headbanging, for Chrissake, and I haven't done that for years! Got tired of the migraines, I guess. But there I was, hair a lot shorter and the head bobbing like a madman, screaming “I'm loaded... and I don't care...” and “I've wasted... all of my time... and I'm losing... most of my mind... and I... don't... care!!!!!!” and listening to this guitar solo which I swear to God is as close to Randy Bachman as I've ever heard--- Bachman at his best! Remember the solo on Guess Who's American Woman? Think that cranked up to 11 on a stack of Marshalls and you're almost there. In fact, I want to hear this through a stack of Marshalls cranked up to 11--- a big stack! In an arena! This is the kind of stuff I saw back in the late sixties when The Wailers took on The Sonics at the Albany Guard Armory. When Stray opened for Caravan at the Starwood in the mid-seventies. When Motorhead... wait. I've never seen Motorhead! See what this stuff does to me?

There is raw power here. Raw power! Play it low and you won't get it. This kind of music you have to crank up!!! Wild freaking take-no-prisoners, slashing guitar and vocals as raw as the guitars. Riffs! Noise! Pounding beat! It's all here. Again, though, crank it up!!!

  All tracks are good but rockers are going to really get off on opening track I Can't Wait, Wilt, The Stones-oriented Charley Horse, the demon speeder She Believes, Locked Out which reminds me a lot of many of the bands from the seventies New Wave movement, and Loaded, which starts out pure funk and turns wall-of-sound riff-heavy hard rock quickly, with an extended groove over which two guitars run rampant--- God, you gotta love them dual leads!!! Call the Cops ends the madness and it's just as well. My heart can only take so much exercise these days. Just ask my girlfriend. By the way, I don't have one. Just threw that in to see if you were paying attention.

Garage freaks, metalheads, Power-Poppers and speed freaks are going to love this album. Hell, I'm not any one of those except maybe a Power-Popper, and I love it, and the last time I looked in the mirror, I was an old man! Not as old as I had thought, I guess. If I am, this music makes me forget it for awhile. Ah, to have the Maxell sound system. This is the kind of stuff that makes your hair blow back. And, yes, I still have hair. But I probably won't have it too much longer. Not if I keep listening to these guys.

Available from Green Monkey Records.

Frank O. Gutch Jr.

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog, his own website and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades. He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gracefully.)