Review: Thee Vicars 'Psychotic Beat!'

Garage Punk is a stupid scene filled with gloriously stupid people. Finesse and aptitude are not things you associate with Garage Punk. However, over the years, since garridge started to be revived, there's been an alarming number of groops who have been showing that they have done that most dreadful of things... and that's get some practise in on their instruments.

No such worries for this bunch of reprobates. Thee Vicars have made an album that's as daft as it is dim. It's a veritable village idiot of an elpee, sniggering at the cock jokes and stealing licks from rowdy frat rockers and lost 45s made by American idiots.

Naturally, it's a very pleasing listening experience.

You see, if you sign up for this garage punk lark, you expect very little away from volume and familiar riffs. For a garage LP to really work, it has to be recorded pretty badly and sound like it's only got a small handful of records in the collection. They are:

A Bo Diddley Best Of

Count Five 'Psychotic Reaction'

Thirteenth Floor Elevators first two LPs

The Sonics 'Sonic Boom'.

Some Yardbirds comp.

Some early Kinks 45s

Thee Vicars have studied these albums and channelled them into something equally raucous and fun. The tracks are called things like 'Monkey Mess', 'You Lie' and 'Come On Stomp!' which all recreate that very authentic '65 fuzz of bands being brash and snotty and a little too giddy at getting to play around in a studio for the first time. Judging by the front cover, these little twinks have a combined age of more than 40, which is probably roughly the age of the people who buy these rekkids in the first place.

In fairness, there's not much you can say about it that is new or original, that's because there's nothing new or original about 'Psychotic Beat!' Now, that would normally be a bad thing to say about a new record... but we're talking about a Garage Punk LP here. You don't want innovation or fresh takes on old styles. This is faithful and sounds right. If you dig noisy, basic rock 'n' roll, then Thee Vicars have got a long player fulla tricks that will make you grin from ear-to-ear. I really enjoyed playing it through.

The singer sounds a bit like Sky Saxon too. [Mof Gimmers]

Thee Vicars: Psychotic Beat! Out November 16th 2009 on Dirty Water Records