The Capitol Years were once plural in name only. The group began as a one-man project, with Shai Halperin doing all the writing, playing, and singing. After one album, 2000's Meet Yr Acres, he kicked the jack-of-all-trades route to the curb, got himself a band, and made a quick metamorphosis into a brash rocker. The full-band edition of the Capitol Years put together a hugely entertaining live show and released the rollicking Jewelry Store EP in 2002. An archival release put the solo act to bed, and now they've dropped the first full-band Capitol Years LP, Let Them Drink.
The record doesn't want you to just kick back and listen, preferring to taunt you from your chair via head-nodding blues punch-ups and brawling rock'n'roll. In their new, rougher state, the Capitol Years play with a lot of brash bravado, but they're not beyond a good three-part harmony or a strange song structure that, for instance, kicks into sudden overdrive at the end of the chorus. It's not all rock either, with songs like the title track eschewing drums and relying instead on insistently strummed acoustic guitar for momentum. The song's vocal melody see-saws over a simple chord progression, backed by full, rich harmonies.
Of course, the songs on either side of it are amped-up strutters, with "Everyone Is a Skunk" flying through about four different sections that could each be the chorus and "Ramona" flirting with undulating "Suzie Q" guitar riffs before twisting into a pummeling raver. "Giant Drunks" plays the best blues card, with a crawling beat, thick bassline, and chunky guitar riffs in the verse and breathy harmonies on the refrain.
The only place where it doesn't really work is unfortunately also the longest song, "Nothing to Say" (unfortunate title, too, come to think of it). It wants desperately to rock like there's no tomorrow, but the band holds back and then holds back some more and finally lets it die without having lived first. The sleigh-bell rock of "Lucky" closes the LP and nicely redeems it, ending this entertaining, varied rock record on a high note.
