Black Lips
Let It Bloom

Don’t go mistaking this for a lost relic, some treasure from a time capsule dug up from a Detroit Rock City subway this year but dating back many tens: Let It Bloom may sound quintessentially retro, full of jangling guitars and blurry lo-fi edges, but its punk is of a thoroughly modern bent. Well, when the four-piece erupt with their full fury, that is; when they’re at their (bitter)sweetest, such as ‘Dirty Hands’, Black Lips could pass for distant cousins of The Beatles, their odes to the opposite sex flawed by potty mouths and a complete lack of romantic convention. Their gestures are getting tattoos, passing joints and wearing leather, not passing around boxes of chocolates and bunches of flowers bought in a panic from a gas station forecourt.

‘Boomerang’ is similarly musically jovial, possessing a charm uncommon in modern pop: the lyrics are delivered in a slurred rasp, but the loose drumming and looser strings are simply delightful. The retro impression stems primarily from the recording quality alone, as the band’s deliberate no-thrills approach is bettered by many a home-recorded demo, but it’s no less compelling for its semi-gimmick status. It’s when they lose their rigid pop structures, though, that these songs really come alive.

‘Not A Problem’ opens in prime Icarus Line/The Hunches fashion, a chilling scream piercing the fuzzy distortion about it. Never as bombastic as the aforementioned they may be, but songs like ‘Not A Problem’ and ‘She’s Gone’ are masterpieces of quasi-controlled chaos, always sounding three seconds away from self-destruction. A wicked laugh closes the latter in truly devilish fashion, the following ‘Fairy Stories’ sounding something like a Nevermind cut if it was recorded in 1962.

For all the talk of the band’s soul-stirring capabilities on this album’s press release, all Black Lips are, really, is a tatty rabble of punk rockers playing pop the best they know how with the minimum amount of fuss: when they really kick out the jams they’re electrifying, but when they don’t they can be just as delightful in a wholly different manner. Let It Bloom won’t be the best rock ’n’ roll record of 2006, but its knowing authenticity is worthy of eventual investigation.