Pack Garage Band

The debut LP from the group Coven is noteworthy for reasons more historical than musical. That is not to say it is a bad record; it is more of an interesting record that is unique and listenable. With an elaborate package released on Mercury in 1969, a good trivia question can be made of the fact that bassist Oz Osborne performs on this album, whose opening track is "Black Sabbath."…

By 1967, the Shadows were at the end of their hitmaking career, and very close to breaking up altogether. Before they went, however, they had one final classic to deliver, an album that arrived packaged up like a parcel, which, when unwrapped, revealed a host of solid gems, evidence that no matter how far pop music had moved from the model they helped style a decade earlier, the Shadows had no intention of being left behind…

Just when the first-generation British Invasion bands galloped ahead into pop art in 1966, the Small Faces worked a heavy R&B groove on their 1966 debut. That's not to say that this pack of four sharp-suited mods were unaware of the times. If anything, no other British band of the mid-'60s was so keenly tuned into fashion, the four Small Faces capturing the style and sound of dancing pilled-up mods better even than the Who, possibly because the group could carry a groove better than the Who, as this tightly propulsive debut amply illustrates. Like many '60s debuts, The Small Faces is split between covers, songs the label pushed on the band, and originals, some clearly interpolations of songs they'd been covering in clubs. "Come on Children" echoes James Brown's "Think," and "You Need Loving" is based on Willie Dixon's "You Need Love"…

A Kansas-based rock band whose music was a downbeat mixture of psychedelia and hard rock, Bulbous Creation would have to wait until many years after they broke up to receive any recognition outside their home town. Bulbous Creation were formed by bassist Jim "Bugs" Wine and guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Paul Parkinson, both of whom grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, a town about ten miles from Kansas City. Parkinson took up guitar in his early teens and played in a handful of ad-hoc groups during his high-school days, most featuring his good friend Wine on bass. In 1966 Wine went into the military, and he settled in Kansas City, Kansas upon his return three years later. Wine was keen on starting a band, and a newspaper ad brought him together with a talented guitarist, Alan Lewis, and a capable drummer, Chuck Horstmann…

The Dead Weather - Horehound (2009) {Third Man Records - 88697539122} (featuring Jack White)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 267 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 104 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 94 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Third Man Records / Columbia / Sony Music | 88697539122
Rock / Alternative / Blues Rock / Indie Rock / Garage Rock Revival

Expectations for a project featuring members of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, the Kills, and Queens of the Stone Age would almost have to run high. After all, these are all bands that find ways to draw on the classic tenets of rock without sounding completely indebted to the past. Yet the Dead Weather – which combines the talents of Jack White, Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart, and Dean Fertita – aren't so much concerned with living up to expectations as they are about defying them. There's a different kind of alchemy on Horehound than on any of the bandmembers' other projects. Not only does White returns to his first instrument, the drums, he also trades in the high-pitched yelp he uses with the Stripes and Raconteurs for a deeper, at-times unrecognizable, voice on "I Cut Like a Buffalo," the lone Horehound track he wrote by himself.

The first of a duo of "two-fer" collections of Manfred Mann's earliest work from 1964 and 1965 oddly combines their first and third American albums onto a single disc. Although there aren't any extras added onto these straight 2001 reissues (except for replications of the original cheesy notes), the crisply remastered sound is in pristine stereo. As a cross between the jazzy style of the Zombies, the ragged R&B of Them, and the recycled American blues of the Pretty Things and Yardbirds, Manfred Mann hit a lot of diverse bases. Covering songs from Burt Bacharach, Muddy Waters, Goffin, King, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Bo Diddley, Joe South, and even early Bob Dylan, the band cut a wide musical swath.

There's a good reason why the Move's eponymous 1968 debut album sounds like the work of two or three different bands - actually, befitting a band with multiple lead singers, there's more than one reason. First, there's that lead singer conundrum. Carl Wayne was the group's frontman, but Roy Wood wrote the band's original tunes and sometimes took the lead, and when the group covered a rock & roll class, they could have rhythm guitarist Trevor Burton sing (as they did on Eddie Cochran's "Weekend") or drummer Bev Bevan (as they did on the Coasters' "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart"). Such ever-changing leads can lend excitement but it can also lend confusion, especially when the group enthusiastically mixes up Who-inspired art pop with three-chord rock & roll oldies and more than a hint of British eccentricity…