Top Billin

The New Lou Reeds play liquored-up rock 'n' blues that would be welcome at any bar serving PBR in a can. From The Big Takeover: 'Or more likely the New (early) Pere Ubus, a thought reinforced by their being from Cleveland, their recording a song called 'Peter Laughner' (an original Ubu member), and most of all by Stephe DK's vocals, which bubble and squeak and squawk in a highly similar manner as David Thomas's - not like Lou Reed's at all. (Even if 'Hometown Hero' is very Velvet Underground.) But the nice thing about Ubu is that they were so hard to copy, and The New Lou Reeds don't try, either. The jagged but fulsome rock action here, like on the gnashing 'Stranded in Ashland', instead discovers a previously unknown link between Captain Beefheart, Television, and Neil Young. The music is rhythmic, kooky, a little twisted, and unpredictable. They even try a twisted rock take on ska on 'The Foreigner' that does to the Skatalites what the Clash did to Junior Murvin, as well as a waltz-blues in 'Brighton Beach' that compares well to Iggy & the Stooges' 'I Need Somebody.' Screwed is generally excellent. And lyrically, they convey the absurdity of bad urban decay that was this crumbling, industrial 'mistake on the lake' better than anyone since Thomas did. I say 'was' because I haven't been there in 11 years. From this record's opinion, I might well say 'still is.'' from Julian Cope's Head Heritage: 'I've also been vibrating off the in-bred sounds of SCREWED by The New Lou Reeds, who come from Cleveland and don't sound like that old Velvets tosser. Indeed, they're coming on more like an over-caffeinne'd Warren Zevon meets that classic Elevators period when even a quizzical Roger Kynard Erikson can't quite reach the Gurdjieffian complexities of Tommy Hall's lyrics. Delightful babies, truly unctuous self-obsession at it's highest level ('Without warning a wizard walks by!'). 'Teenage Metalhead' has a polio strut to die for (nay, live for) and they even finish the record with a song called 'Peter Laughner'!'