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REVIEWS:
THE
BUFFALO NEWS
Oh, sweet, glorious, grubby rock 'n' roll. We have to stop meeting like this. So much has been written about New York City's rock revival -- most of it in the British press -- that one feels compelled to reference the Strokes whenever discussing a Big Apple rock band. With "Bad Timing," Brooklyn's Grand Mal solve this problem. The group, led by guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Bill Whitten, predates all the "rebirth of rock" hoopla by a number of years. They don't sound like the Strokes. Rather, their elegant but scuzzy boogie is part T. Rex glam, part "Spiders From Mars" weirdness, part "Exile on Main Street" white gospel-blues. It's a sprawling, glorious mess, and producer Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips) has captured it perfectly here. The title track, all slurred vocals, gloomy ambience and too cool to care subtext, recalls the Velvet Underground; "Quicksilver" sounds slightly stoned and that twilight feel lends its wary melody something like grace; "Disaster Film" sounds like a sober Primal Scream. Surely, this is one of the great rock 'n' roll records of the year. Ask the mysterious, black-clad guy chain-smoking at the end of the bar -- I'll bet he owns it.
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Jeff Miers
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