Tricky Woo – The Enemy is Real

I really dig a lot of Canadian band Tricky Woo’s sounds, but I never knew that they started out as a fairly trashy garage band as this 1998 CD (their second) shows. Their more current records are more hard rock/metal oriented, but this has out & out 60’s steals (such as the Sonics’ rip-off on “Let Us Sing”). Overall the feel is a lot like early Mooney Suzuki though maybe even rawer and punkier – maybe even like the Dwarves when they were crossing punk with garage). They even add horns on the manic “Fever”, so they were willing to try different things! I prefer their later releases – they are still manic, but with better sound, songs and playing. But those who like cacophonous, low-fi, screamin’ garage may dig this CD more. Though the ending of the last song is obviously intentionally annoying with several minutes of a screechy pseudo-Asian-folk-song.

BTW - this is one of the worst covers of all time, and that includes anything seen here.