Coachwhips

The success of Detroit’s White Stripes with the neo-blues garage revival reportedly in full swing has opened the rusty-hinged door to those truly subverting the blues language and its stale, sacred practices. Surely, thrashing the blues idiom into a violent, unrecognizable mess will inflame purists, but it will unite the punks, and San Francisco’s Coachwhips are first in line. Guitarist and vocalist John Dwyer had previously cut his teeth in the noise terrorist duo Pink and Brown. Coachwhips continues the chaos but adds the garage rock pieces with drummer Mat Hartman and keyboardist Val-Tronic along for this fierce collision of disorder and style. One could say that each and every song on the album sounds alike, and some may even add they’d rather have a hammer rhythmically and insistently pounding their skull than have to sit through this tangled shit. I, however, will profess an enduring allegiance to the Coachwhips’ way—a confession perhaps misread as guiltily admitting a love for staring into the smoldering wreckage of an especially horrific auto accident.