Reviews - 4/16/10

The Wide Angles - Wide Angles 7 Inch - Rock solid, and dare we say anthemic, punk rock from out Elgin-way. That's Illinois to our out-of-state and international readers.
By way of references, think the Arrivals or maybe the Bomb. Workmanlike but very talented daddy-o. These here Wide Angles are the band that are on the bill opening for the band that you planned your evening around. But maybe before you go to bed, maybe the next morning, maybe the next week, you say to yourself, "you know what, I think that Wide Angles band was the best band I saw that night."
Here's to the next time you see them. We like underdogs.
And you can also pick this one up at both http://www.letspretendrecords.com/ or http://www.nobreaksrecords.com/. We also like split label releases.

Tweak Bird/It Burns - Tweak Bird/It Burns Split 7 Inch - First things first, great artwork on the sleeve of this fucker. On to the music...
Our prodigal sons, It Burns (www.myspace.com/itburnsrockmusic), offer up two ditties of palpable hatred and frustration. But as always with these guys, it sounds like a great time. The title of track 2 pretty much answers the question of what is the rudest possible question you could ever ask of someone. From personal experience, a couple of rude ones are, "when are you expecting?" (she wasn't pregnant) and "why do wear so much make-up? (she didn't think she did). But those were honest or, at least, good-intentioned mistakes. It Burns just straight-up asks some fucker, "Why Can't You Be Dead?" And the music matches the gist of the question. Does it ever.
2 more destroyers from It Burns that you need. 8 years of unbelievable rock and roll by our count. Do yourself a favor.
Ironically, the first lyric from the Tweak Bird (http://www.tweakbird.com/) side of this slab proclaims, "Life on Earth is great/Full of surprises". But this isn't necessarily the polar opposite of the It Burns side of the split. There's a pretty heavy psychedelic vibe to the Tweak Bird track like they're on kind of a Hawkwind trip or something like that. Thundering drums, twisting bass-ish lines (is that a bass or no?), some pretty high-pitched vocals, etc. Definitely some cool stuff going on here. We'll keep our eyes open for another release with more than one song, and so should you.
If you beat us to it, let us know.
(Minimal internet searching after the fact now tells us that Tweak Bird has a new album coming out. Don't worry about alerting us anymore...we'll pick it up ourselves.)