The Warlocks - 'Phoenix' (City Rockers)
3/5
By: Toby L
Through the dreary, smoke-filled haze of the music-industry's central board-room, a clambering was heard - a desperate bid to examine the latest prototypes of a West Coast American, rock 'n' roll clan of darkly-clad and sleazily engrossing grandeur. They're called The Warlocks, apparently: LA's deathly answer to, er, the Californian-residing BRMC. Except this is slightly different. But only slightly.
For The Warlocks are somewhat more convincing with their sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock 'n' roll clichιs; where the 'Rebel Motorcycle Club prefer to brood over more affirming matter (remember the gospel-stomp of 'Salvation'?), The Warlocks endeavour to 'Shake The Dope Out' or experience a 'Cosmic Letdown'. If it were any more retro, you'd be entitled to beating your head against a brick-wall; seriously, whatever happened to my evolution...?
Yet, there's enough panache, grisliness and P. Scream-swagger to provoke a heftily enthralled ear or two. 'Phoenix' - what could be soon regarded as the band's definitive LP - is their second to date, and a ragged, cut and thrust gallivant through the 'Stones jadedness of post-binge rehab (the prior-mentioned 'Shake...'), and an altogether more sinister, hedonistic tomfoolery, deeply enlaced in scattering, dirgey guitars and extravagantly laden keyboards and wistful harmonica. 21st Century Blues, alright.
Although only ten tracks, each average number extends seamlessly beyond the five-minute mark, often sometimes never even contemplating of finishing up ('Baby Blue', specifically, with its laughably epic, final organ-note reverberating for what - in a stoned haze - could constitute a decade). Elsewhere, the shaggy shuffle of 'The Dope Feels Good' and a percussive 'Stickman Blues' - sounding akin to The Ramones too paralytic to maintain a regular pace - form an instantaneous bond to your all-time greats of classic psychedelia, and a closing 'Oh Shadie' is the inevitable slow-burner, tapping snare-drum and engulfing, drug-addled eeriness combining to form a wig-out of the most laziest slump.
OK, so this paranoid sextet don't keep up with the times. But in a fashion where the fad is just that, The Warlocks' prominence is worthy to sustain a few more months of A-list associates and uber-elite parties. After that, goodness knows - just don't expect them to change for anyone but their crooked selves. Not that they need to with a racket this distantly pouting and joyously traditional, anyway.
Artists in this article: The Warlocks
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