Shake Appeal is a column that highlights new garage and garage-adjacent releases. This week, Evan Minsker discusses the latest from one-man synthpunk band Trin Tran, Nashville's Southern rock outfit Natural Child, Italian punks Sultan Bathery, and more.
Trin Tran: The Far Reaches EP [Castle Face]
This week, Castle Face is releasing two synth-centric records. One is from label head John Dwyer, who's releasing the album Hubba Bubba under his Damaged Bug moniker. The other is from Trin Tran, aka Madison, Wisconsin's Steve Coombs. The album continually pushes forward, sometimes with an overtly cosmic vibe, sometimes with accents of dinky percussion ("Round Right"), sometimes with a firm and persistent thump ("Eyes the Size"). Its opener "Fashion Has Happened to Fashion" is a highlight. Listen below as Coombs' vocals take on a cartoon Bowie quality; the guitar adds a refreshingly earthbound texture to the EP's galactic heights.
Trin Tran: "Fashion Has Happened to Fashion" on SoundCloud.
Natural Child: Dancin' With Wolves [Burger]
"Don't the time pass quickly when you're makin' love?" That's a crucial theme of Natural Child's Dancin' With Wolves—time flies while you're having a good time. With that in mind, they stretch out across four-, five-, and six-minute jams. The Nashville trio don't seem to care much about being "cool guys," just about the simple things: looking good, drinking beer, playing guitar, getting high, and, duh, sex. They've brought in session musicians here to accent their well-established Southern rock sound with pedal steel and keyboards. It's a Burger record, sure, but it ain't raucous or even fast. Its "good-times American jams" mission statement recalls the era of Leon Russell and the Band and the Allman Brothers. Grab a beer, have a seat.
Sultan Bathery: Sultan Bathery [Slovenly]
It seems like every month, Slovenly releases another album from a different corner of the world. Whether it's Acid Baby Jesus in Greece, PyPy in Canada, or Thee Oops from Italy, the Reno-based label is frequently churning out raucous, exciting rock'n'roll music from all over the place. The latest is the new self-titled LP from Sultan Bathery, which features a dozen guitar-driven, Nuggets-indebted tracks. They've got buzzing and fried guitar solos on "Mirrors" and "Dead Leaves"; "On the Run" is a rolling blues. Each track offers a different hue, but everything's complementary and certainly lives in the same wheelhouse. It's another success from Slovenly, who will hopefully continue scouring the globe for rock'n'roll albums like this one.
Also Worth Hearing: The latest LP from Fort Worth rockers the Longshots (via Mock); the latest single from Vancouver's the Jolts (via Shake!).