THOSE PEABODYS
United Tonight (Tiger Style Records)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Here is an album primed for the first 45 minutes of your hopefully raging house party. It's fraught with tepid rage and is room temperature raucous through and through. Those Peabodys are a four-piece straight out of Austin and if you're smarter than the average bear, they'll be straight into your living room before too long.

Most of United Tonight sounds like vintage Husker Du, only lighter - like Sleater Kinney without the feminine angst. If sound places an album, then this one grooves with a hot smooth punk like 1983. Maybe the cohesive rhythmic middle finger of the long gone Minutemen has finally resurfaced. How "Denim and Diamonds Forever" escaped from the Double Nickels sessions I'm unsure, but I'm glad it did. I can say for certain that D. Boon and Mike Watt would be proud. Give "Makin' Magik" three seconds - just three, and it will have toes tapping throughout the room. Is there a slightly unsettling, yet hysterical gender bend to "River Deep Mountain High?" Yes there is. Yes there is, and it's awesome.

There is a sense throughout United Tonight that lead singer Clarke Wilson is mocking you. That's all right, it's probably nothing personal. After all, indignation this cool deserves an audience.

© 2003 - Erick Mertz