The Lash Outs - The Lash Outs (Zodiac Killer Records) 2008. A solid release from these Dallas, Texas boys. The Lash Outs remind me a lot of the Yuppie Pricks minus the trust fund lyrics. The band has the same sense of punch and you get the vibe that these guys would be a blast to see in some hot dive. At best, as on the opening instrumental Chupacabra, the guitars sound like some sort of mescal fueled hoe-down version of Pipeline-era Agent Orange. If you’ve ever heard The Nervebreakers cover of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly then that’s a probably more appropriate (yet obscure) reference. Then of course, you get to Pain In The Ass, which at 2:36 morphs into a goddam Iron Maiden song! Jaysus! If you’re gonna play punk-n-roll in 2009, you gotta do stuff like this to keep it interesting. Its pretty impressive to hear guitars go from rockabilly leads to twin harmonics, let me tell ya. They do it again on I Don’t Wanna Be With You, which is a pretty straightforward punk rock song (with harmonic leads). If you like The Nervebreakers, you will probably dig these guys. The only time they lose me is when they start decrying the state of rock-n-roll as in songs like Kids Don’t Wanna Dance. We all know that the fans are mainly there to hook up and get wasted and the bands all suck. Maybe its my age but at this point thats a dead horse. We got bigger things to worry about during these Last Days of Man on Earth. But that’s a pretty minor quibble cuz this shit rocks good. Yeah…I used the word “quibble”. What of it?
Chupacabra
Set Me Back
Dream Catcher
Pain In the Ass
Whitney
Kids Don’t Wanna Dance
My Life (or Lack Thereof)
Don’t Wanna Be With You
Fellatious Flo - (live)
Requiem For Rock and Roll