White Denim: Manchester Ruby Lounge: 23.11.08
White Denim have arrived on the scene in Manchester straight from the greased loins of rootin’ tootin’ Austin, Texas, to resurrect us from a premature death-through-simplified-pop-matter. With the upheavals of a life lived observing the charts and the endless televised marathons that are genuinely, and utterly, pointless, we can now be reborn and claw out those pearly white earphones to connect with a sound that delivers the confused promises of the majority of youthful acts currently out there.
When you listen to the trio, either from the vast array of self-released EPs or from the short album ‘Workout Holiday’, you can hear an incredible amalgamation of genre. And it isn’t difficult to interpret. You don’t have to work hard to understand what’s going on, you can take portions or leave them; and there lies the crux. There lies what reminds you of the Pavement ethos. Live, it has an intricate sophistication, of instruments in tight arrangements, jamming in plaid but seemingly hanging by a thread. They play through the set of new material and tracks from ‘Workout Holiday’ with precision, riddled with frequent guitar solos from James Petralli that writhe with uncompromising acidity. The jazz trained Joshua Block on drums is an organised mess that carries the band through their scuzz fests, which included the brilliant ‘Let’s Talk About It’.
White Denim could be taken straight from the Monks ‘65 E.P, a garage psychedelic rock bit. It’s Pavement in their best Slanted & Enchanted days, and has the raw visceral energy of The Sonics. This is young, boundless, psych-out rock that seems endearingly naïve in all its truth, it expresses how shit we all feel when we go to a music festival and get caught by the pigs for having a few magic mushrooms and our senses are finally lambasted by The Killers.
On recording, they provide more distortion, more scuzz and blues with wild production. Alongside contemporary peers Times New Viking, they give the rawness of ‘Shake, Shake, Shake’ and ‘All You Really Have To Do’ with a sneer and an over done scratch. During the set an audience member jumps on the stage and basically rags its body about the place, as James Petralli scrunches that greased mouth and moustache to deliver a sweaty funk, a crotch-thrusting funk that with all its adult composure provides a paedophilic slide across from the startling boy-like Steve Terebecki.
This year’s Steve Malkmus and the Jicks tour saw Malkmus ‘shreddin’ in his own words (something we never thought we’d see him do), and White Denim’s efforts only serve as a foresight into how great lo-fi garage rock is as an original source. It’s moving and genuinely exciting, and a new prospect for the bored, cynical youth.
5/5
Review by Alice White
Photo by Oliver Jones
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