Published on May 25, 2004
Life somehow seems to unveil silver linings under the strangest
of circumstances. For instance, back in January, I placed an order
with a favorite online music store of mine in the Scandanavian
reaches that was very top heavy in recordings by Örebro,
Sweden’s punk/garage act, the Peepshows. There are a couple of
reasons for this that I won’t attempt to bore everyone with, but
fundamentally, I knew the Peepshows had a history worth checking
out that exceeded the handful of releases that were already in my
collection.
Back to the story. It’s now May and I still haven’t received my
order, which has recently caused me to dig into my collection and
play the albums I do have to the point of ad nauseum. Now, I’ll
attempt to begin recreating the Peepshows history by revisiting the
band’s first EP,
Right About Now.
Dual guitars, bass, drums, and vocals, with a lineup put
together in the traditional sense, had this Swedish quartet laying
down seven tracks in conventional two to three minute romps
befitting the biting punk rock style and dark rooted urgency that
the band’s Norwegian neighbors, Turbonegro, perfected with their
then recent release,
Ass Cobra
.
While the opening riffs of “Sometime-O-Time” define this claim,
they loop themselves in just enough of a distinctive fashion to
give the track its own cache and avoid the claim of being merely a
duped Turbonegro effort. The guitar tone throughout this album
borders on death punk, but singer Adde Wolfbrandt, aka Addey’O,
doesn’t attempt to mirror the same sinister vocal pitch as Hank von
Helvete.
For some folks,
Right About Now might be categorized as an action rock album
set to guitar tones that are just heavy enough to avoid comparisons
to the Detroit action rock scene of the 1970’s. The title track and
“Dirty Motherfucker” are songs that subtly develop the loosely
crafted guitar solos that might give this action rock definition
credence, but I’m still of the opinion that
Right About Now is an album on an upbeat punk mission first
before it decides to dance into the hybrid definition of punk n’
roll.
Interestingly, I can now see where the Peepshows paved the way
for their neighbors, the Hives, to capture fleeting success with
the chorus that catapulted their 2000 recording “Hate to Say I Told
You So” up the charts with their track, “I Don’t Wanna.” After
hearing this track, maybe the Peepshows should have “wanna’d” a bit
more, if you catch my drift.
So, in conclusion, I’ve heaped praise on every Turbonegro album
I’ve reviewed in the past as well as affixed myself with being
known as an action rock fan.
Right About Now is an EP that only serves to deepen my
interest in these genres and is an initial effort that was well
done. Credit the botched courier service for forcing me to focus on
listening to the Peepshows releases I do have and not the ones I
don’t, as I wrongfully thought the that newer material might be the
better place to start in building my assessment of the band.