Former teenage stoners who yearn for the culturally incorrect Zeppelin records they sold off in college have a dependable friend in Royal Trux. The band has the Drag City stamp of hipster approval, yet they get to make strutting, ballsy guitar rock that channels British Invasion blues, Nuggets-era garage, and mid-70s Aerosmith, all the while pretending that punk never happened. How did Royal Trux get so lucky, to have their "Brown Sugar" riff and play it, too? Maybe it's because some still look at what they do as some kind of "commentary" on tired rock conventions, so they slip under the post-modern radar.
If earlier, more difficult Royal Trux albums drew from non-mainstream skronk traditions, the albums they've made since leaving Virgin and returning to Drag City have been taking dramatic strides toward Freedom Rock territory. Pound for Pound, their second full-length in less than a year, continues this trend. Oddly, it's both Royal Trux's most consistent record in some time and their least interesting. This means that while they avoid godawful eight-minute jams like "Blue is the Frequency" (from last year's Veterans of Disorder) that always seemed tacked on to court the Wire Magazine set, they also fail to produce any breakout, ass-blowing songs like "I'm Ready" or "Yo Se!". Instead, we get a capable, uninspired homage at FM rock history.
And it is homage, never theft. The circular chord progression, Latin-tinged bass and goofy conga fills of "Small Thief" bear striking similarities to Santana's "Black Magic Woman", true, but Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema put their own unmistakable spin on the formula and make it their own. Same goes for the long, spacy "Deep Country Sorcerer", which borrows bits of its melody from "House of the Rising Sun".
But these so-so tunes aren't going to be popping up on anyone's mix tapes in three or four years, so all we're left with is a handful of memorable riffs: "Platinum Tips" has one almost Page-ian in its epic reach, but it lacks the round bottom of the master's finest. "Sunshine and Grease" spotlights chords that almost make you forget the banal lyrics. (Almost.) And "Dr. Gone" closes the album with a restatement of thesis, as the Trux drop a two-minute drum solo into the middle of a song the Carter-era J Geils Band would have been proud to call its own. My memory has just been sold...
