Rob Johnson/Vocals (Background) Tim Kerr/Guitar, Percussion, Piano, Piano (Electric), Vocals (Background) Matt Patton/Bass, Vocals (Background) Craig Pickering/Drums John Smith/Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW by Johnny Loftus/ALLMUSIC Anyone who admits to knowing the Immortal Lee County Killers is either drunk or crazy. Tuscaloosa, AL, nutjobs the Dexateens not only thank Chet Weise in their liners, they sound happily inebriated and fever-pitch hyper on their self-titled first full-length for Estrus. As Weise's Killers do with blues, the Dexateens hot-wire musical norms in trashy fun fashion. Rock prefixes like stoner, garage, and even Southern (take a tipple of "Shelter" as a sample) are rakishly rewired; it's like waking up to find the kitchen sink spraying cold beer from its faucet. "Hard Lovin'" turns on a feverish guitar bend and a slurred Jagger impersonation; "Cherry" and "Cardboard Hearts" deploy the double-hammer muscle-car fuzz of Mudhoney or Fu Manchu. Tim Kerr -- lovingly referred to here as "Chancellor" -- has mixed The Dexateens to gritty, hedonistic perfection. The vocals of Elliot McPherson and John Smith always seem just off mic, as if they were too busy strutting their whining guitars toward one another or smashing cans of Goebel into their foreheads to actually sing. Meanwhile, "Still Gone" and "Strangle Hold" emulate the unique sound qualities of listening through thin apartment drywall to the band next door. The latter's raucous harmonies even distort at their peak. the Dexateens make shoutable, needle-burying bar band rock that never loses its ear for a hook or eye for a good stage pose. But, like the best of Estrus' ever-boisterous crop, they do it with subtly professional craft. The band takes a mid-album break from the screams and power riffs for "Air We Breathe," a skulking groove piece with nods to Brian Jonestown Massacre psychedelia. Proving the brains behind the brash, the track gets a reprise, and ends The Dexateens in a hail of slippery back-masked fizz. They're definitely drunk and crazy. But it's winking smarts that make the mayhem work so well.
April 17, 2012
0817 - THE DEXATEENS - Hardwire Healing (2007)
THE DEXATEENS ''HARDWIRE HEALING'' FEB 6 2007 MAY 2005-JAN 10 2006 SKYBUCKET RECORDS DOWNLOAD
David Barbe/Drums, Piano Tony Crow/Fender Rhodes, Piano Patterson Hood/Vocals Elliott McPherson/Assembly, Guitar, Vocals Nikolaus Mimikakis/Guitar, Vocals (Background) John Neff/Pedal Steel Craig Pickering/Drums William Tyler/Guitar
REVIEW by Stewart Mason Three albums into their career, Tuscaloosa quartet the Dexateens have all but entirely abandoned the punk rock of their early records. Produced by the somewhat unlikely team of Sugar bassist David Barbe and Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers, Hardwire Healing is ironic in that this is certainly the least Drive-By Truckers-like album the Dexateens have yet released. This album still rocks effectively, but particularly on its second half, a newfound restraint appears. Indeed, the final third of the album is almost entirely acoustic, exploring a lower-voltage and more overtly country and blues-influenced sound than before, and it's the best the Dexateens have ever been. In particular, the surprisingly gentle ballad "Nadine," which is little more than an acoustic guitar and an emotionally strained, J Mascis-like vocal from Elliott McPherson, is one of the band's most compelling tunes, and the only marginally more arranged "Outside the Loop," built on a lazy shuffle rhythm and woozy steel guitar part, rocks just as hard as any of their punkier sides. One hesitates to use the word "mature" in this context, but where a lot of the Dexateens' retro-punky compatriots have either started the slide into self-parody or already broken up, Hardwire Healing shows a more than welcome level of progress.
