NEVER COME BACK - Get Lost! (Voodoo
Rhythm)
To say Get Lost! were nothing less than a revelation when they hit the CD rotel
is an understatement. This is unselfconscious fuzz-psych-garage from Switzerland
and it sounds fantastic.
Vocalist-guitarist Gerry Mohr and guitarist Robert Butler are former members
of the Miracle Workers, themselves an American '80s band of some repute, so
it shouldn't be too much of a shock to hear that this rocks. Mohr moved to Switzerland
in the early '90s and he and Butler fell in with the likes of local bassist
Kat Aellen (Bishops Daughter, The In-Sekt) and another expat Yank, in drummer
Chris Rosales. Rosales was then behind the traps for Swiss madman Lighting Beat-Man's
Never Heard of 'Ems (and remains there in the Reverend Beat-Man's Unbelievers).
And so this combo found themselves on Beat-Man's great and growing Voodoo
Rhythm label. This is Album Number Two. You know the formula, but so what?
It sounds unusually fresh. Mohr delivers mush-mouthed vocals with an imprinted
sneer while the guitars bend and stretch.
"Love is a Garden" grooves its through pools of the thickest undergrowth of
fuzz guitar you'll hear this side of the Monsters. "One Way Ticket" is the sort
of goo goo muck the Cramps used to be able to spit out consistently, all pulsing
riffage and gravel-throated emissions. "Second-hand" is a piece of sassy tuneage
about shopping for clothes in whatever the French version of Carnaby Street
was in the '60s, replete with bi-lingually-challenged spoken word exchange with
an oblivious check-out chick. Aellen and Rosales lock in on a killer feel and
stay there.
The sole cover, "Leavin' Here", has been nailed by everyone from the Who to
the Rationals to Pearl Jam, and it sounds nice and potent when Get Lost! turn
their attentions to it.
Get Lost! do it simply and with style and don't outstay their welcome, clocking
in at a skinny 32 minutes. They ain't going to change the world or shake music
with a new trend, but the best stuff often doesn't. Give it a spin, we say.
- The Barman
3/4