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The Crack
Babies: Smoking at Gas Stations
Crack, baby crack. Show me your rear. Who knows where these Swedes got their name from, but it certainly wasnt David Bowie they were conjuring up when they recorded Smoking at Gas Stations. Instead, it was clearly The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Id say the seven songs here may as well be the lost studio outtakes from the Psychocandy sessions. Lost, because the distorted guitar must have caused the original studio tapes to disintegrate into thin air. At loud volume this is truly one of the noisiest albums using guitars that I have ever heard. The beauty in these songs is the familiar trick of underlying this noise with a 60s pop punch of sweet melodies. Noisy shoegazers have always gotten a bad rap. The original classification of a shoegazer was meant as a derogatory term to group a bunch of bands together that all sounded the same. Why in 2005 do we have artists like The Raveonettes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, M83, Skywave, and now The Crack Babies, who all sound pretty darn different, getting criticized for copying the same bands? It seems to me that the shoegaze genre is enjoying a period of rebirth that seems to transcend some fairly impressive geographical boundaries. Unlike most of the trends exported from the UK, shoegaze is one style thats evaded the radar of mainstream music almost completely, and it still has a lot of room for reinterpretation. So why dont I get back to describing Smoking at Gas Stations? Well, anybody familiar with The JAMC will instantly peg this band as chaotic Psychocandy revivalists. Hell, songs like honey believer out-distort the masters themselves. The real question every critic will ask upon hearing this release is, how legit is it to borrow so liberally from your influences? Well, BRMC and The Raveonettes may have sounded just like The Chain at first, but they are both preparing to promote some far mellower material on their third releases. Quieter songs like Pretty on Smoking at Gas Stations could hint that The Crack Babies have some similar tendencies. Im glad that The Crack Babies are learning how to recreate some of the feedback drenched noise pop of twenty years ago, and I hope they can take the sound to new listeners. Where would rock n roll be anyways if nobody ever ripped off Chuck Berry? And if Elvis Presleys coolness is viewed in regards to his knack for offending the eardrums of an older generation, its hard to imagine a cooler band around today than The Crack Babies, who could probably send your parents on a one-way trip to the migraine madhouse.
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