Earlier this year, the Memphis quintet Sex Cult played SXSW and impressed the hell out of DIY punk busybody Ty Segall, who agreed to produce their debut album. In between that show and this release eight months later, the band traveled to San Francisco and cut tracks at Eric Bauer's studio in Chinatown, where Sic Alps, Thee Oh Sees, and pretty much every other San Francisco band have recorded. They also changed their name: Faced with a cease-and-desist letter from a New York label, Sex Cult converted to Ex-Cult.
That westward progression suits the band well, especially since Fog City and Bluff City have so much in common. Both claim small but active scenes that gnaw the bones of their musical pasts: Segall and his contemporaries find inspiration in the seismic rumbles of hippie punks like the Beau Brummels and the Chocolate Watchband, while several generations of Memphis acts-- as diverse as Tav Falco, Reigning Sound, and even Jay Reatard-- have deconstructed and reassembled the r&b swagger that echoed off the walls of Sun, Stax, and every other local indie label.
Those various strains are apparent on Ex-Cult's self-titled debut, which-- no surprise-- sounds like a Memphis punk band recording in San Francisco. It's never quite that simple, however: There are nods to nervy UK bands like Magazine and Wire, as well as to rambunctious Aussie punks like the Victims and Calif. crew the Angry Somaons (Ex-Cult covered "No Fun on the Beaches", by Mornington Peninsula's the Chosen Few, for the b-side of their recent "M.P.D." single). The Memphians' sound is streamlined but not hostile, powerful but not brutal, with ear-catching flourishes peppered throughout the dozen songs: the guitar chimes that open the album, the skronky guitairs on "M.P.D." that sound like saxophones, the circus-geek backing vocals on "Don't Feel Anything", the co-ed shouts on closer "Future Victims".
There is plenty of Mid-South grit on "Shade of Red" and "Young Trash" to complement Ex-Cult's occasional bursts of West Coast melodicism, which may ultimately have less to do with Segall's production and more to do with the fact that Ex-Cult claims several members in common with Memphis indie-popsters Magic Kids. For all its urgency, Ex-Cult rarely slows down enough to let those component sounds combine and sink in. It's almost too intense for its own good, with one jittery punk attack after another. But the twin guitars, courtesy of J.B. Horrell and Alec McIntyre, always find some new texture to explore or some new perpetual-motion machine riff to lock in on, and Chris Shaw, formerly of Memphis hardcore act Vile Nation, shows a volatile charisma that occasionally sounds constrained in this studio setting. Ultimately, Ex-Cult gives the impression of a band more comfortable on stage than off; they have a great sense of punk's past, but they're still getting a grip on their present.
