149. Thee Headcoatees - "Girlsville" - 1991
I have an infatuation with strange retro Garage Rock, and occasionally I check out modern revivalists, however the more recent bands in the Garage scene tend to fall into a variety of traps. For starters, they usually have a very predictable and homogeneous sound, and are usually difficult to differentiate between. And while they do have a habit of releasing good (or at least fun) songs, they often release them on flawed albums that are either full of similar-sounding material, or scattered numbers that don't really complement each other.
That being said, there is only one Garage Rock Revival album from the 1990's that truly managed to surprise and excite me; "Girlsville" by Thee Headcoatees. The reason why it's such a fresh and memorable album is that they have a very raw core sound that gives their songs that Garage-y feeling, while also experimenting with different styles to keep a sense of variety throughout their songs. As you listen to it, you find yourself wondering what they'll throw at you next, never knowing if they're going to ease into things with clean vocal harmonies or simply attack you with screams, slamming drums, and dirty guitar riffs. They go from Freakbeat ("Wild Man", "Melvin") to the Blues ("Boysville", "Round Every Corner"), dipping into Kinks' style Riff Rock ("Dirty Old Man""), Pop-Punk ("Last Plane Home") and the trademark Vocal-Pop style of the 1960's ("When the Night Comes", "Stolen Love"), all without missing a beat.
"Girlsville" is an intriguing album. It's sloppy as hell, while also having a definite refinement and precision beneath the oddity, and this strange quality makes it one of the best examples of the Garage Revival movement, if not the entirety of the Garage Rock genre. If you've ever wondered what Garage Rock is all about, this is a great place to start.