Have you ever listened to a new album, only to deflate from eager to impatient, drumming your fingernails on your veneers as you waited for the performers to get to the goddam point?
Well J Roddy Walston and his band The Business must have. And they made quadruply sure listeners didn't have to wait for their self-titled debut to wake up and declare itself.
Walston doesn't so much tickle as assault the ivories as the kamikaze pilot of this blues/rock-n-roll/country flight crew. This is exactly what the Brits, Aussies and other "world" music fans look to America for: an album so raucous, unabashed and sweetly soulful, it can only be a bunch of pearl-snapped, Motown-influenced punks too young and naive to know when to say when.
Only, these guys aren't out of control at all. Throughout all the banging, crunching and clattering, each song is deftly managed for maximum, oh, let's say "kickassedness". "Full Growing Man" in particular combines the power of Jim James's flying V with the weirdness of Bowie and the balls of Buckcherry.
We should all be so willing to get to the goddam point so thoroughly. It's okay to get turned on by loud rock n roll. If it were possible, I'd have an earection.
Score: 18/20
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Sounds like Nate would have given a 20/20. He came home PUMPED up about this band last night.
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