The Arrivals - Razorcake Sister Series

Ah, The Arrivals. How I love thee! How I miss the delicious time we spent at Insubordination Fest just a couple of months ago. You talked up Tenement, who didn't make it to Baltimore, but ripped more than their fair share of ass for a bunch of youngsters at Lost & Found a couple weeks later, and said nice things about maybe coming out in East in the Fall. Here's hoping, as their entry into The Razorcake sister series is one hell of a tease. Their split is with the Grabass Charlestons, but the sisterdom manifests itself in seperate slabs of 7" delight. We'll get to the Grabass soon enough, but in the meantime it's going to be hard for me to stop talking about the four selections the good folk of Razorcake have afforded us. Let's sally forth, shall we?

Things open with My Generation. which only assets the fact that there is a strong argument to made for The Arrivals being this generation's domestic incarnation of The Who. While one of the four songs on the record is a cover, this isn't it, as much as I would like to hear Paddy rip off a bass solo or three. It does sound a lot like early Who and that ain't bad. At all.

Things segue nicely into I Wouldn't Dare, a tune that neatly nicks the riff from Boris The Spider and grafts it on to an early Replacements vibe. Over way too soon at 2:40.

Bachelor number three is Drill Baby Drill. The longest song at 3 minutes, and perhaps my least favorite, but in the same way that beef tacos are my least favorite, or handjobs my least favorite form of release. Not a bad thing, even in lowest common denominator form.

The closer is the cover. As the series is shared with Grabass Charlestons, it is a cover of said same's Ask Mark Twain. While it rips, and has a pretty bad ass bridge, I'm going to throw my love behind the first two tracks, but again don't sell the stellar taco/handjob metaphor short.

Pick up The Arrivals half of the series here from the good folk of Razorcake. Consider subscribing as well, as they are perhaps the only bastion of independent music still worth reading. West Coast readers would do well to take in the D4/Arrivals/Grabass show with the mighty fucking Tiltwheel in a couple weeks. Yowza!

xo

R