Neverland Ranch Davidians

 I really loved the live set I saw of Tex Mosley's NRD a few months ago and have been looking forward to picking up some recorded music ever since and this finally became available. I've seen Tex play for years, ever since he created some of the truly iconic riffs for the Hangmen back in their beginning days, and have always dug his style and here he alternates licks with a second guitarist (no bassist), Will Bentley, and drummer (Max Hagen) while also - quite ably - singing lead. The various influences - pure rock'n'roll, garage, blues, soul, and noize - all shine through while creating a sound that is familiar to rockers but still all their own.

Opening with their simplistic theme song, "The Gospel", they bring in waves of sustained feedback for this Stooges/Bo Diddley-beat driven bit of Suicide-esque, moody. dirgey, swampy, instrumental rock'n'roll. From there they pick up the beat and add Tex's vocals for "Rat Patrol", a kinda garage-punk-soul cat call (rat call?) complete with backing "oooohs", then change up to a James Chance-ish, syncopated no-wave/funk/jazz/garage of "Fat Back" with more cool backing vocals and a hip, fuzzed-out coda, followed by another trek through the swamp with waves of feedback and heavy riffs and a stompin' mid-section for "Aqua Velveteen" and then a high-energy riff-rocker in "Liquor Store" before side one ends with an almost Hangmen-like piece of riffin' swagger in "Solid Monkey Blues".

Link Wray's "Butts in My Beer" (was that really the title? It certainly sounds like a take on "The Swag" or something) is given an appropriately trashy NRD's take, "Boys Don't Cry" (definitely not the Cure song!) is a mid-tempo, lick-filled garager, "Hen House" is another syncopated, no-wave/funk number, but with their own heavy treatment, natch, "Stigmata" is one of their best - a gloomy/doomy/heavy riff, reminiscent of something that I can't put my finger on, with hip lyrics and a fantastically noisy solo section - pretty terrific! They create a punk-blues for the powerful, racially-charged "Knee on My Neck" (I wonder how many similar situations Tex went through as a black man in the LA punk scene, which was already a target for the LAPD?) before ending it all with a fine, soulful take on Ray Charles' "I Believe To My Soul" that could well be giving a nod to the MC5's version.

Really great and highly original rock'n'roll with all the right influences from throughout the ages! See them live if you can, as they truly do shine in that experience, but definitely pick this up, as well!