Royal Trux
Pound For Pound
Drag City
Now let us pray at the altar of the boogie. Presiding over our session today will be Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema, known to the world as rock and roll’s rabid pit bulls of fuzz, Royal Trux. Opening with “Call Out the Lions,” Trux manages, somehow, to weave Blue Cheer and a Hindi melody together- and it works. Kinda like getting hit in the head with a softball bat works to focus your thinking. Hagerty tosses off great, dirty power riffs and sneaky lead lines the way some people snap their fingers. Herrema continues her “are you sure that’s a chick singing” vocals – if a more incredible woman exists in music today, I ain’t seen or heard her. Royal Trux’s music is deceptively simple – at first, it sounds like most any other stoner rock jive, until you start to break it down, and realize it’s not so much melody and tempo as it is anarchy set to a four-four beat. This will never be background music – it’s too alive, too demanding for that. By the time Jennifer snarls “Down home lips/and platinum tips” (“Platinum Tips”), only the strongest of listeners will keep an even heartbeat. Trux has carved out a singular niche for themselves over the years – in large part because they are so damn compelling. Dirty, sexy, and relentless, this is the music that will playing on the soundtrack to the next American Revolution. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Neil and Jennifer in the lead tank – chain smoking and laughing.
Drag City, 2000 West Carroll, Suite 201, Chicago, IL 60612; http://www.dragcity.com
