- Label: 'Property Of The Lost Records'
- Genre: 'Punk/New Wave'
- Release Date: '2.11.25.'
Our Rating:
Live at The Jenny by Thee Headshrinkers was recorded in 2023 as the bands debut album, but they decided that The Jenny doesn't have the same appeal as the Grande Ballroom in Detroit did for launching the MC5's career, so this live album with no overdubs is now the bands second album follow up to Head Cheese. The Headshrinkers are Rob Stocking, Gino Balaclava and Stiv Doll Head the album was mixed by The Jenny's live soundman James Stonewhewer.
The album opens with Johnny with some hissing amps and feedback before they really get going with a rampaging beat and punch you in the guts riff, for this classic asking Johnny if he's coming home or not, with no signs of any soul pop Johnnies at all.
Head On has a pulsating beat, insistent riff and wailing Garage punk vocals imploring you to put your Head On boy, get your life together and join another rampaging low fi punk band now. Save Your Life, this has a looser sound than on the album and the vocals have a bit of a Mark E Smith twang to them, garage guitars rage away, the drummer gives us a tour of his cymbals.
The Fly has frenetic garage rock and the oddest of Auto-tuned or otherwise treated vocals, taking it to a weird tangent. Sweet Caroline has nothing to do with Neil Diamond this is far darker and full on than the monument of the same name will ever be, guitars are greasy while the despairing vocals are going to hell as quickly as they can.
Motorbike revs the guitars up and gets well oiled, ready to tear down the coast roads in the middle of the night, staccato rhythm driving them on, trying to avoid all the speed cameras by turning all the lights off and going full on kamikaze.
Derivative is what Thee Headshrinkers undoubtedly are, in being a top notch, wild as they can be garage rock band in the 2020's, yelping and screaming there way into your brains, one nasty guitar solo at a time. Muva Fucka With A Chainsaw has a cartoon garage rock sound, to this true tale of failed romance and murder in a house that stinks of Chicken shit.
Chancer takes a Seeds style beat and mauls it through a Cramps style prism for all the Chancers out there. Hit Man is Fall like, but more focussed, with machine gun guitars for the vocal yelps to scream over, like they have just been hit by The Hitman.
Going Down opens with them warning it's a long one and is Prog, that might be true on the intro, but once the drums crash in its' much more stretched out garage rock, with hints of Auto tune on the vocals, that is the only thing that will stop this from being perfect for garage rock comps.
The King Is Dead if only this was a true story about a yank, that wants to be King being totally brown bread, this has a loose riff and what sound like improvised lyrics, splenetically attacking double-barrelled upper-class twats. Travellin' man keeps things dark and full of guitar effects while they hang out round the Hanging Tree again, just let that guitar splice you apart instead.
The show and the album close with I Wanna Be Your Dog the much-covered Stooges classic, the twist they put on it is having a Cornet player, who adds the free jazz flavour that Steve McKay added to Funhouse era Stooges. This is a very cool version of a song I own hundreds of versions of.
Find out more at https://propertyofthelost.limitedrun.com/products/870871-thee-headshrinkers-live-at-the-jenny-lp https://theeheadshrinkers.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-the-jenny-2 https://www.facebook.com/squeezemyhead
