Art Fad-Vatos LP (2011)

I had just gotten home and was headed beerward when this tidbit of Potato State garage crossed my desk. Since I was gonna close the night by playing Blitz at top volume, per the last five nights, I figured a little variety was in order....

....Caldwell, Idaho (where the fuck is that?)'s Art Fad (best clever-dumb band name I've heard this year?) blares out coupla 7-8 tracks of scratchy, trebly, hollered surf rock from landlocked climes. I can't imagine what life's like in Idaho-the very name conjures up images of Snakes (Rivers or otherwise) and radical Republicans....but this shit's good, dude.

The songs sorta melt into each other like sequences in a downer binge (think MDMA-Vics-Cods), and the singer just hollers clipped phrases over insistent percussion, and the result is something I'd like to see in a basement, 10 beers into a weekend bender. The minor-note soloing on the seventh track is particularly sick.

Shit was recorded by one of the masterminds behind Teens, for what's it worth. Fuck you, listen to it!