Rizoma-s/t EP (2013)

New in the "less talk more rock" category, Rizoma is Madrid's answer to Chicago's bratnoise outfit Birth Deformities. Succinctly stated, if you've been mourning the demise of Government Warning as much as I have, you'll love Rizoma. On their debut, Rizoma shouts, strums, bangs, and kicks their way through six mid-tempo shout-along bits of bratpunk, tailor made for those of you still living with your parents. Which is half of the Europeans between 18-29 reading this, apparently, according to the Guardian.

If I had any experience in said subject, I would heartily agree with the proposition of the second song: "It feels so good to kill my neighbors while listening to the Stooges." As it happens, I only have experience getting blackout drunk and throwing bottles at them while "Death Trip" blares from my bedroom window, but whatever.

Point is, as March's winds usher in the pissant spring downpours of April, why don't you download Rizoma's debut EP and let your miscreant misanthrope misery burble over like fine wine? You know you want to. 

Wau y Los Arrrghs-Todo Roto LP (Slovenly Records, 2013)

Franco was still in power when this sorta rock was peaking in the States, but it was worth the wait for the Spanish version. Wau y los Arrghs, unlike a lot of the total trash I review, can write real songs with identifiable segments that don't blur into each other. Hell, I bet this wasn't even recorded on garageband! Maybe in a real studio!

This LP is nothing but rave-up '60s garage bangers: one after another, they're the sorta jams American high school bands played at mixers before the fucking Beatles released that heaping pile of shit known as Sgt. Pepper's and convinced everyone that endless ragas are somehow pleasurable. High school bands shoulda stuck with this organ-and-guitar based melodic party music, man.

"Fruta Podrida" perfectly encapsulates the Wau sound: the singer howls in a controlled way, like Wolfman Jack. The guitarist busts out vamp after vamp, the organist trills away mightily, and the rhythm section strives to keep up. "Tres Cabezas" gets even nastier: nuthin' but a rat-voiced vocal line snarled above a manic organ cluster, with a weird lilting beat somewhere in the background.

If you've always liked the Nuggets collection more than anything the Beatles ever produced (like me), you'll love this. This woulda been on my Best-of-2013 lists if I had heard it last year.

Listen to, and buy a vinyl copy of, the LP here!