Atlanta’s Black Lips cast a Gaussian blur over psychodelic garage rock. Or maybe these unhinged flower punks — coming from the crustier end of the Back From the Grave spectrum — see it through the haze rising off the tarmac, or maybe in the opalescent oil slick of acid-rain-beaded glasses. To the lysergic lads, rawk is like a Polaroid picture — not just something that inspires a good shake (or a strangulating spasm), but also a highly malleable emulsion. As with the Cramps, the Dwarves, and the Lollipop Shoppe, it’s equally lo-fi and voyeuristic.
Beating back the Black Lips’ fumes is Nashville’s adolescent take on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Be Your Own Pet. Like a nitro-burning soapbox racer, it’s jittery, hand-cobbled chaos blurting in short bursts more combustible than Mentos in Diet Coke.
This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2006.