Dead Combo's self-titled debut ain't a record for all times, but it's applicable for many and tailor-made for some. Its shrill, treble-heavy, splintering guitars and buzzsaw electronics constitute a rackety Wall of Sound noise that competently squats on land already settled by The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and Spacemen 3 . But whereas bands such as Spacemen 3 used primarily acoustic instrumentation and often drifted into murkier, jammier territory, Dead Combo's music is stiff, shrill, and loud, with no rhythmic give and little dynamic ambiguity.
The propulsive "Tech Out" and "Come On Baby, Yeah" have a twisted tension that comes from the band's motorik rhythms and use of drum machines and other electronic devices. Atop this unflinchingly precise foundation are fuzzed-out guitars-- brisk, trebly, and volcanically potent. On poppier numbers like "Sunny" and "You Don't Look So Good", there's even sterility to Dead Combo's attack that makes their brand of sonic brazenness easier to swallow than that of grubbier acts like The Icarus Line or Hot Snakes.
Oddly, Dead Combo also features two live tracks: "Splinters" and a cover of David Bowie's "Let's Dance". It's an unusual move on a freshman outing, but the songs are among this collection's finest, capturing the band's monolithic (and reverb-abetted) stage presence. On "Let's Dance", a rounder, clearer vocal performance provides the album its most melodic moment, albeit amid another requisite blizzard of distortion. "Splinters" sees the band trying their hand at schlock-rock, and a frenzied audience greets song with approbation. Dead Combo's aesthetic may not be affable-- noisy, trebly, garage-y rock 'n' roll is often cliche-ridden-- but there's still an art to cranking it up to 11. Some bands stock munitions for years without managing to pack a wallop like this; this is a textbook example of how to do it right.
