The Detroit Dish
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Album Review - The Space Heaters: Warming Up
On to other things, those being seven tracks of no-frills Detroit rock offered up on Warming Up, the first full CD release by The Space Heaters. These guys represent one level of old guard around the D, having individually played in The Ramrods, Murder City Wrecks, The Boners, The Denizens and Almighty Lumberjacks of Death, amongst many other bands. Former 7" tracks "James Johnson" (barroom guitar crunch with wailing harmonica) and "(Loosely Based On) Memphis Minnie's Blues" (New York Dolls stomp with serious guitar/saxophone interplay) appear again here in all of their trashy rock glory, though the rest of the original material fails to measure up to those high water marks.Opener "Winona Knows" is a methodical straight up rock track; the song's a bit on the long side at four minutes, but the rhythm guitars are good stuff. "Language of Love" is plain but surprisingly peppy with just a taste of 50's pop bop to it. "New Electric Train" is the best of the new breed, with a smooth out-of-nowhere chorus and a killer old-school style guitar solo.
The album rounds out with a pair of covers; Curtis Mayfield's "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Gonna Go" starts out with a hilarious echoed intro, sending accusatory vibes with the roll call of, "Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld / Condi!" (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Garage rock covers of Curtis Mayfield songs are pretty awesome.) The mid-song breakdown introduces some free-jazz saxophone riffs, and though the song gets a bit indulgent over it's sprawling seven minutes, the rhythm section stays solid. Man, the bassline in that song is just fantastic. Things wrap up with a solid, if unspectacular take on the MC5's "Sister Anne" that at least offers up another killer old style guitar solo.
Some of the material's a little dodgy, but there's enough 'oomph' on Warming Up to appeal to the folks who were around to get down to the stuff these guys threw down in the 70's and 80's. I'm not figuring too many of today's 'Victory Records Generation' kids would get it, though. Young whippersnappers ...
Speaking of whippersnappers, I got lost for about a half-hour working on this review when I started surfing through Motor City Rock. Now I've gotta go dig out my copy of Halloween's Don't Metal With Evil for a quick spin sometime this week. Great.- posted by Señor Garo @ 1:19 AM | Permalink | Create a Link | | Email this | Social bookmark
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