TURQUOISE FEELING S/T 12inch EP

Photo courtesy of Turquoise Feeling's Facebook page

     The sounds of the Rust Belt. It's brash but earnest. It's normally a bit of shambles but beneath the racket there's allurement of melodic disharmony. It's the type of sound that is often found being made by people stuck in Midwest cities that are a couple hours drive away from any place "cool" but they don't really care or in towns where there's a state college. Even in the latter instance it's not made by folks who's parents are footing the bill. It's usually guys that have to work two job and schedule any higher education.
     It's the sound of the shaggy and thoughts articulated not through grandiloquent tomes but from folks that'll lend you a smoke and then converse with you about the bullshit in the world around you both. They're the cats who when put on a bill a with some national press darlings, they will play louder and harder, bumming out the Pitchfork readers there to say "I saw them back in..." if the buzz band goes any farther. They'll also get someone who's never seen the before declaring them the best band in town halfway before their set is done.
     While the landslide of rumbling bass and blood drawing guitar scratches of  the records opener "Feverfew" make evoke thoughts of NZ's Flying Nun sound at some sort of mega-unruliness such or the way "Post Partum" could be from early 80's and much more turbulent Athens, GA, Turquoise Feelings are 100% wearing their heart on the frayed flannel sleeve Rust Belt. Them being of the Ohio chapter, noises of other denizens from the Buckeye state creep in and out of their commotion then get bent into a new directive. For instance, both the former and latter above also may prick the eardrums as a Death of Samantha being cranked through car speakers being put to use after being dug out underneath of pile of discarded and vermin ridden tires.
     More closer to their home base, the mangled jangled guitar interplay of "January Sisters In Drag" and "External Oblique" are like the Cheater Slicks getting all bent of out shape on Neil Young & Crazy Horse bootlegs which means can listen to them over and over all day and most likely will. The hyperactivity of "Dreadful Things Done By Girls" and the drunken sing-songy melody got me thinking of Gaunt without really sound like them at all.
     The one thing that all the songs in common here though is that they're all like mini epics. I didn't set a stopwatch or anything, but they all pack what they want to do and say pretty quickly and too the point.
     It's been awhile since I have gone on an ALL OHIO music jag but I think it's time to do one soon and this record is going make it place among some other records from the state I tend to listen to still on a regular basis.
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