Bonniwells are ripped straight from that popular image: rudimentary melodies, troglodyte beats and sneering anti-social attitude. From The Sunn stumbles into view from the barest of ingredients – a proverbial bedroom jam session that somehow evolves into a song packed full of sonic intensity. Lazy Daisy is a rich collage of acid, amphetamines and adolescence, Elk Beat finds hitherto unknown garage gold in the basic structures first mined by The Sonics and Ms Anderson sweats with the passion every teenage boy’s wet dream.
How We Came To Stay is raised is raised on a diet of The Trashmen and The Troggs, and a special treat of Buffalo Springfield if you’re lucky, Mongo Pusher drags its feet through the psychedelic sludge like an acid casualty trying desperately to regain a lost grasp on reality and Everyone Say Hello is the fucked-up Pistols morning after the happy pilled night before, when peace, love and happiness has turned to hate, shit and frontal lobe torture. Crack Man is the superhero garage anthem that Tim Burton missed for his latest feature, Suntan And Freckles is surf rock on a beach polluted by washed up Stooges records, Mudskipper is bubblegum pop stuffed in a Tacoma trashcan and the palpable irony of I Smiled Yesterday is almost as good as the primitive ingredients upon which it rests.
Even if you don’t buy into that ’60s mythology, Bonniwells are now, today and the antidote to all that contrived corporate bullshit that’s regularly shoved in our faces, and down our throats. This is rock’n’roll with attitude, hold the fashion statement.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: From The Sunn
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: THE TRASHMEN, THE STOOGES, THE SEEDS, THE SONICS
In A Word: Garage
