Tanja received a box of promo CDs from a record label, so I think it will be fun for me to post my aging, Gen X thoughts about this “new music.”

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These guys sound like the White Stripes if Meg White was twice the drummer and could do crazy fills. Plus a whole lot of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. The only thing missing is a virtuoso lead guitarist on the level of Jimmy Page, but I guess that would be a cover band.

All the licks are borrowed, and even the lyrics dwell in the area of unicorns, jokers, witches, and anything pre 1980. The result of this long-hair rock melange is The Darkness without the sense of humor. This is not a joke. These guys want to “rawk”.

Unfortunately I watched a video of Wolfmother and was strangely reminded of Carrot Top and Napoleon Dynamite fused with Nirvana. They blow past the live show crazy-out-of-control rock show quite well.

The sound of the album is minimalist and nearly sounds live, with a raw, forward balls-out crunch. I’m sure they labored for days to get the guitar tone just right. Meanwhile, the rumbling drums echo all around like an aerial assault. It’s refreshing to hear people using the toms to play triplets again. No sign of digital trickery, drum machines, or Antares Auto-Tune roboticizing here. Rounding things out is a fat blast of bass guitar and sprays of prog-rock organ.

My favorite songs are Dimension, Woman, Joker and the Thief, and Tales, which starts out like an epic rock song with switching tempos, a Pink Floyd type verse, and a crazy Spinal Tap like story line. I’d actually like to hear more of that sort of stuff from Wolfmother. The songs about hot women left me colder.

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