Gustave Tiger-Mitanni Mares LP (2014)

This is the best rock album I've heard in quite awhile. Budapest's Gustave Tiger have written a helluva an album: 6 original tracks plus a Venom cover, all of them winners. Not only that, the production is clean enough that you can discern clear sequences to each song.  Noise is an ambivalent thing-done right it's delicious, and deliciously obnoxious, but it's often used as a cover for a lack of ideas or simple incompetence (this isn't a problem if you're a punk band but if you wanna sound like you're from Seattle ca. 1992, it is). The songs are bouncy, not boring, tender not maudlin.

The LP opens with "Jeunesse Doree," which sorta sounds like it should be the theme song to that TV show Girls. Don't hold that against G.T. however; it just sounds sorta earnest and is propulsive like running through the city chasing someone you just were awful to, like the characters on that show. "Eutropious" walks the line between punk and something heavier, without being grunge: one of the things that sets this band apart, besides top-notch song-writing skillz, is the singing. The vocalist has a high-pitched, paper-thin wail that buts up against the menacing, heavy-as-nails music. It makes for a sense of paradoxical vulnerability in what's  pretty macho style of music. Which makes it way more interesting than most of the garbage taking its cues from the early '90s set these days. There's pockets of squalling noise squirreled away throughout the songs and they're welcome because they're unexpected.

I won't spoil the LP for you by describing each song, just DOWNLOAD IT! Apparently GT is on tour currently, so go see 'em if you live in Hungary. Stay tuned for more from this band in 2014, i expect great things from 'em.