Mike Polizze, the man behind Purling Hiss, has tapped into a trashy aesthetic that's part of rock'n'roll's DNA. He's got introspective druggy tunes and riff-heavy party songs, both of which romanticize the brilliance of a burnout. But that's not Polizze: He's a Philadelphia friend of Kurt Vile's-- he played guitar on the Childish Prodigy tour-- who started out in Birds of Maya and made scuzzy rock records as Purling Hiss for Permanent and Woodsist before putting out this EP on Mexican Summer. But "burnout" is as good a word as any to convey his brand of rock grit, which is slathered in cruddy production and with a hard emphasis on shredding.
Lounge Lizards' six tracks serve as a logical follow up to the sound and feel of last year's Public Service Announcement, which was also a meeting of catchy hooks and awful production quality. Of course, the sound is presumably intentional and serves a few purposes on the EP: it dampen screams, accents enormous guitar solos, adds density to an already dark song, and muffles instruments' sounds so they bleed together. The effect defines Purling Hiss' sound. This time around, the production doesn't completely warp the tuning in the middle of a song like it did on Public Service Announcement; instead, he opts to make everything sound vaguely smothered.
Just past the muffled noise, there are some bold, well-executed tunes. "The Hoodoo" serves as the instant earworm of the record, offering a power chord-driven hook, a far-away percussion stomp, a note-perfect guitar solo, and a stupidly catchy and simple melody of dudes singing "HOODOO!" between verses. On "Karaoke Nite", beneath completely unintelligible vocals, you can hear the muddy shouts of "whoo whoo" reminiscent of the ones on the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and a fluidly harmonizing guitar. There are dozens of well thought-out, off the cuff, immediately catchy elements like this on Lounge Lizards, and it's clear Polizze has become more than adept at crafting great rock songs.
There's also a lot in the way of mood-- like in the heavy, deliberately paced trudge of "Voices", a track that finds Polizze stoned and hearing voices in his head. He's not frantic or frightened-- he delivers the song with a lazy whine, which pushes forward one brand of actual, not-stereotypical stoner paranoia ("I don't want to be alone/ Don't want to be stoned"). Meanwhile "City Special" lets Polizze stretch out into doomier territory. He still throws dynamic guitar accents into the mix, but keeps most of the elements to a drone.
Sometimes Polizze gets overindulgent. On "Midnight Man", he offers an urgent riff and what sounds like an army of metalheads shout-singing, "I am the midnight man." And while the intimidation comes through, it wears thin halfway into the track. Ultimately, it's a shortcoming that's easy to overlook when it's sandwiched between two high-flying guitar monsters like "The Hoodoo" and "Been Teased". And really, "Midnight Man", both literally in track placement and in its ominous lyrical mantra, is the centerpiece of the burnout savant aesthetic that Lounge Lizards pushes. If you're stoned and hooked on a groove, sometimes you just keep going.
