Johnboy - Claim Dedications

Label: Trance Syndicate

Year: 1994

I believe someone was requesting Johnboy awhile back, and I kinda forgot about that until a day or so ago. Sorry. But, here's that Johnboy you wanted. Their second (and final) album anyway. 

The band were a trio that plays some thick, repetitive, noise rock that skews more towards the Shellac end of the spectrum rather than the Unsane side. Meaning, it's heavy but not in a chugga chugga way, more a molten lava advancing towards your Waikiki winter home way. The songs unfold as simple arrangements but very effective in creating a warm paranoid blanket of sound. This second album has a more polished sheen than the first one (which I'll get around to posting soon), which hearkens back to some of the midwest math rockers of the late 80s, but sans the more complex tempo changes. Johnboy likes to set a tempo, and then ride that all the way through the song, subtly altering the riffs around that beat as they progress. Of course, that's not to say they won't throw a curve ball every so often, but generally speaking once you're locked into a song, you're locked in. Vocally, it's reminiscent of say, Slint, but there aren't that many lyrics here anyway, and those are buried down in the mix more so than most bands, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. In fact, this record was produced by Steve Albini, so rest assured, it sounds perfect, the bass and drum tones are phenomenal, so heavy.

Basically, here's another band from Austin that kills it like a lot of Austin bands were killing it during this time, and if you know Trance Syndicate then you can get an idea of what this sounds like. It's real, real, real good. Alright? Great.

DL