12:00 am
Rocket from the Crypt—The State of the Art is on Fire (1995)
Several blocks south of the last of the city's glass towers, past the Salvation Army and the glowing neon cross of the Gloomy Bible Institute, past the crowd of people camped under the highway onramp with all of their worldly possessions in shopping carts, there is a smallish basement music venue with a peeling sign illuminated by a single red light. It's a place the invisible man has visited many times before, though of course no one there would know him as a regular. Tonight, he slips past the titanic bouncers and down the stairs to find the place packed from wall to wall with a sweaty, rowdy crowd surging with excitement. A band is on the stage—a six-piece blast of guitars and horns known as Rocket from the Crypt—and they're clearly relishing the way they're balancing this crowd on the knife edge between party and riot.
Because of his condition, the invisible man is understandably leery of crowds. So at the earliest opportunity he hops over the bar and starts pouring himself shots as he ducks and dodges the bartenders.
The reality with Rocket from the Crypt is that I could have picked pretty much any of their albums to review here—they're virtually all that consistent and that good—but I decided to go with this little seven song EP (nine if you have the CD) because I feel that it's the strongest, most concise RFTC experience there is. It roars out of the gate with "Light Me"—the first of several compact, high-energy tracks with something of a fire motif. Surf drums pound, horns and guitars blast, and a little vintage organ even weaves it's way in and out for a moment before the churning wall of sound that is "A+ in Arson Class" blasts its way through the wall. "Rid or Ride" follows quickly, allowing the slightest chance to catch your breath amid it's rockabilly vocals while still beating your ass with it's minute and a half of punk rock guitar herky-jerk. Then before you know it, you're being swallowed by the brassy assault of what is probably the album's defining moment, "Human Torch". Epic by this EP's standards, this three minute twelve second track takes you through a gut-wrenching lesson in build and release sonic dynamics before dumping you into the ever-so-slightly slower, bass-heavy spin cycle of "Ratsize". If you're listening on vinyl, the album closes out here with "Human Spine", a five-plus minute encore-evoking opus that most clearly harkens back to the band's 1960s garage rock influences. If you're listening to the CD release here, you're also treated to two more tracks—"Trouble" and "Masculine Intuition"—both covers of songs originally performed by 60s garage rockers The Music Machine. Both are quite good, and not surprisingly, even more 60s-sounding than the rest of the EP.
When the band decide to take a break, the invisible man sneaks his way out from behind the bar and back up the stairs to the the street above. He's had a lot to drink and knows from past experience that too much booze sometimes interacts very strangely with his unique physical condition. He makes his way down the sidewalk, gulping the cool night air, hoping to stave off side effects.