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Like those of Guided by Voices and contemporaries Times New Viking, Sic Alps’ lo-fi records sound as if they could have been made by musicologist Alan Lomax wandering out of Appalachia and into the suburbs to capture a band with the crudest possible methods. The cottony texture of an overdriven bass often clashes with extremely thin and echoing upper-register vocal harmonies, but the production here isn’t so much distracting as disarming. Like most slop rock, songs that seem to have an individualistic flair on the first few listens are later revealed as rife with deft imitations of the rudiments of canon staples: “Mater” rips the chugging guitar of the Stones’ “Shattered,” “Gelly Roll Gum Drop” cops the shambling of “I Am the Walrus.” As tempting as the Alps make it to return to the source materials whence they gank, the gritty production disables critical memory in favor of muscle memory, reminding your hips why rock and roll is the devil’s music. The songs don’t approach the calculated sharpness of their inspirations, but why should they? U.S. Ez, emboldened by all sorts of sloppiness, works in the way of Lomax’s porch recordings, forcing rock and roll back into a folk tradition.
SIC ALPS + REPORTS + BLACK CLOUDS + HEATHEN SHAME | Abbey Lounge, 3 Beacon St, Somerville | July 21 @ 9 pm | www.abbeylounge.com
