CYNICS Living is the Best Revenge

CYNICS Living is the Best Revenge (Get Hip)

After almost ten years Kastelic and Kostelich kiss and made up and the fount of all things Get Hip returns. Sure we’ve all lost a bit more hair and gained a bit more girth, except Michael, who can still hide behind a string bean, but they’re as tight, hard and rockin’ as ever. (Though what I wrote last issue about a second guitarist making them possibly the most formidable Rock machine on the planet, if they’d just give in and steal one, preferably one capable of some harmonies/backing vocals, still holds.) Anyway, there’s a new glutton-for-punishment, Smith Hutchings, on bass and back once more is Thomas Hohn on drums. So is three of the four cuts from the two seven-inches discussed last issue -- the opener "Turn Me Loose," the cover of "You’ve Never Had It Better" and "Last Day." And it says hear the whole thing was cut in one day down in Austin under the guidance of semi-legend Tim Kerr, who shoves it all right in your face yet maintains a sharp crispness.

To see what I mean about the guitar thing check out "Let Me Know," a mid-tempo ballad with fuzzed, jangly guitar, tambourine, Kastelic’s more and more Roky-like nasally tone and stretched phrasing and a solid rhythm. In the break a slightly distorted, howling/ringing guitar comes in for a solo, in that left channel, over the regular riffing, in the right channel, then fades out slowly with a solid tone of feedback. In a trio of other mid-tempo numbers they mix in an organ, by someone named Patches: Subtly underneath in the classic Garage-Rock grinder "Making Deals." It comes in more prominently in "The Ballad of J.C. Holmes," lending, along with the backing vocals and mouth harp, a Dylan/Band flavor to this perversely pretty but solidly rhythmic tune. And as a nice wash in the wistful "Marianne;" which in part is semi-reminiscent of Johnny Thunders & Patti Palladin’s "Tie Me Up" (minus the female voice, and sax). Rumor has it that for the first time in almost two decades the Cynics might be touring with a keyboard player. We’ll leave you now with the title track, "Revenge," a bouncy, two-and-a-half minute, us-against-the-world, chunk of Pop-Rock complete with a big, twisting Kostelich guitar solo and shouted, gang backing vocals -- "hey, hey!" (5/03)

David M. Snyder