CD Reviews

Peepshot
Welcome
Self-released

Long Beach's Peepshot feel like a 10-cent beer in a million-dollar town. Like the last drag off a cheap ciggy, right before you accidentally suck the filter down. Like blowing through speed limits on lonely, endless desert back roads. Like slovenly drunkards who root themselves to their favorite barstool and don't move till they fall off. What they sound like, though, are a great, earthy, No Depression-type band—the Bottle Rockets before they went ZZ Top, or a heavier, blearier-eyed Son Volt. The Son Volt snatches on Welcome are obvious: when Uncle Tupelo split up, it was easy to tell that Ben Hinch and Brian Summers, Peepshot's two perfectly good songwriters, chose to follow Jay Farrar's morose Son Volt path rather than Jeff Tweedy's poppier, Wilco-carved one. Listen to: Peepshot
Real Audio Format Matter of Choice Rock N Roll Show <!INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE=" Play! " onClick="loadPage(this.form.elements[0])">
Download the RealPlayer FREE! But unlike Farrar's post-Tupelo work, Peepshot aren't nearly as miserly with their playing. Take "Matter of Choice," a 12-minute-plus jam that they keep interesting because they never let up with their pumping chugga-chugga groove. The only real problem with Welcome is that they don't pull this move often enough. They don't really flat-out rock until the disc's end, and then it's with a song they cheekily call "Rock N Roll Show," like they had to remind themselves to blast their amps every now and then. Still, Welcome makes a sweet soundtrack for the beaten-down, jilted barhoppers of the planet. (Rich Kane)

Listen to: Wus
Real Audio Format Juice and Wadka <!INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE=" Play! " onClick="loadPage(this.form.elements[0])">
Download the RealPlayer FREE! Here's yet another nifty Long Beach band—maybe the weirdest of 'em all. At times, Wus come off like a mellow lo-fi outfit along the lines of Grandaddy. Skip around, and they're fooling with strange, space-jazz meanderings, screeching recklessly like on an old Pixies album, tripping out on funky bubble-gum psychedelia, or squeezing out New Age music for serial killers. They're really into effects, which aren't terribly distracting, but all of this meshes together about halfway through American Style, when they start fiddling with samples, tape loops, hip-hop beats and guitar squeals that sound like cats slowly getting their balls sauteéd. On "Juice and Wadka," they even crib the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night," or something even more sinister we're not yet aware of. Wus suck you in, though, and you can find something different with just about every spin. An intriguingly strange stew, kinda like how Beck would sound on a GHB binge, or the less migraine-inducing parts of experimental Japanese noise bands like the Boredoms—messy, bratty, freaky, disturbing and paranoid but ultimately unlike anything else that's out there. (RK)

Listen to: Limp Bizkit
Real Audio Format Nookie <!INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE=" Play! " onClick="loadPage(this.form.elements[0])">
Download the RealPlayer FREE! Eee-yah-uh, bee-yatch! Ah did it all for tha NOOKIE! Tha NOOKIE! So you can take that COOKIE! AND STICK IT UP YOUR POOKIE! OOKIE-DOOKIE! SOOKIE-SOOKIE! KOOKIE-WOOKIE-ZABLOOKIE MOOKIE-MOOKIE! OOKIE-YOOKIE ZOOKIE-TOOKIE! BE-BI-BO-BOOKIE, BANANA-FANA-FO-FOOKIE! Translation: "We are pompous, talentless, awkward, pathetic and impotent! Give us your money!" (RK)